


Symbiosis

by Rhymepod195



Category: Marvel, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: M/M, Mentioned Thor/Bruce in chapter 8
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 03:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 21,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16318697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhymepod195/pseuds/Rhymepod195
Summary: A bunch of drabbles centered around the life of Eddie Brock and his goosband (Goo Husband) Venom[update: Rating has been changed to Teens & Up due to the theme of Chapter 9]





	1. Fire Alarm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fire alarm test forces Eddie and Venom to get up at ungodly hours. Also venom wants to eat the landlady.

Most of his dreams were of his escapades with Venom these days, occasionally a replay of his memories - but ever so rarely they were actual dreams. A whole lot of nonsense that made sense in the moment, only to be forgotten again as soon as he woke up.  
  
This time he was in Mrs. Chen's store, something about a giant eye in the sky, a dragon was there, and he wielded a giant pen as a sword. _The pen is mightier than the sword, and whatnot._   
But as dreams are, he forgot most of that when he woke.   
  
The blaring sounds of the fire alarm woke him, startling into a sitting position, Venom immediately at attention and rippling beneath his skin, ready to react to danger.   
"Relax, babe, just the fire alarm. Probably that test they mentioned.", earlier that week he had come back to the apartment for a notice - not an eviction notice, but that the fire alarms would be tested at some point during the week.   
His words did little to soothe Venom, he growled somewhere at the back of his mind as Eddie put on some shoes and his jacket, slipping his keys and phone into his jacket pocket as he stumbled outside, still sleepy. He glanced at the clock as he exited his apartment - 4 AM. _Great._   
  
Him, and the other tenants began making their way outside like a small horde of zombies, now standing in the cold October night. Eddie was doing better than most of the others, since most of the other tenants didn't bring a jacket, but he was still freezing.   
  
But, just as he had that thought, Venom made his move, warming up his body more than it already was, causing him to sigh - something the other tenants thankfully thought was one of frustration.   
"Thanks, dear.", he mumbled, tapping away at his phone.   
  
**No problem.** ****  
  
Eddie hummed a sound of acknowledgement, waiting for maintenance to make a sweep of the building, rubbing at the edges of his eyes.   
  
**We need sleep.** ****  
  
"Correction. _I_ need sleep. _You_ want to use my memories as cable.", he argued quietly, still tapping away at his phone. However, as his landlady - a sweet old woman - came into view he felt the space that Venom took up in his brain shiver.   
  
**We should eat her head. For waking us up.** ****  
  
" _No!_ ", he hissed as quietly as he could manage, only earning a couple of confused looks by the other tenants. "We are not eating the landlady.", he frowned at his phone, staring at venom's reflection in it in an almost chiding manner. "We only eat really bad people, remember?"   
  
**She woke us up.** ****  
  
"Not enough grounds to eat her head. C'mon, you stay quiet until we're back in the apartment, and we can go back to sleep."   
  
**Hungry.** ****  
  
Eddie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "We still have tater tots.", those news made Venom purr inside his head, another wave of heat spreading through his body.

They could finally go back into their apartment after a few more minutes out in the cold, Eddie yawning and stretching as he got his shoes and jacket off again, putting his keys and phone back on his kitchen table, opening the freezer and getting out the bag of tater tots, aware of Venom’s **Yesssssss** at the back of his mind as he put them in his little hand-held oven.   
It almost reminded him of when he was a child, staring at the inside of the oven when his mother put food in there to bake to perfection, thinking it might cook faster if he stared at it for long enough.

**I am not a child.**

Venom sounded almost huffy, causing Eddie to roll his eyes. “Sure, you’re not, buddy.”

One plate-full of Tater tots later, and Venom was sated enough for Eddie to finally slink back to bed. It was almost 6:30 in the morning now, and there were many regrets.  
“G’night, V.” Eddie grumbled as he crawled into bed, curling up underneath the blanket. One hand was resting on his stomach with the other one resting next to his face, a small smile forming on Eddie’s face as he felt a hand that felt distinctly like the symbiote’s holding on to the one resting on his stomach.

**Good night, Eddie.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is written specifically because the morning after i watched venom in the cinema, i had a fire alarm test at 5 am.  
> Except I didn't have a symbiote to help me through it, and I don't have a landlady said symbiote wants to eat for waking me up.


	2. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie finds his way back to his apartment after believing to have lost Venom in the fire of the crashing rocket.

**Goodbye, Eddie…**

“No! VENOM!!”, his eyes were wide with terror as he watched the symbiote form a parachute over him, slowing his fall just enough not to kill or knock him out before it disintegrated and he hit the water.

There was silence, bubbles of air escaping his lips before his lungs screamed for oxygen, and he finally found enough muscle control to swim to the surface. He was gasping for breath, staring up at the sky where the symbiote had just been.

He was searching, trying to find some little speck of symbiote he could catch, listened for Venom’s voice in his head,  _ begging _ that whatever higher power was out there heard him and gave him Venom back.

He didn’t know how he managed, but he got back to shore, laying in the bank for what felt like hours before forcing himself to his feet, finding his motorcycle.

_ Home. He had to get home. _ _   
_ He felt numb, almost dissociated as he drove through the familiar New York Streets. He parked, and stumbled his way up the stairs, fumbling with the keys before managing to unlock the door. He barely had the mind to take his shoes off as he meandered towards the bed, collapsing down on it, and sleep claimed him.

When he woke, he was shivering. He hadn’t gotten out of his soaked clothing the night before, fingers numb as he pulled his hoodie and sweatpants off, dropping them next to the bed before curling up again.   
_ Venom. He lost Venom. They had just reunited again and he lost him. _

**Eddie.**

The voice had him sitting up with a start, eyes wide. Was he hallucinating?   
“Venom?”, his voice was shaky, unsure what to think, hoping - praying - this wasn’t just his imagination grasping at nothing.

**You did not lose us, Eddie.**

“ _ Holy shit. _ ”, he clasped his hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking, but for a much different reason than the cold. “You’re alive. I saw you _ burn _ \- I thought you  _ died _ . Get out here right now.”   
The feeling of Venom congealing out of his body had freaked him out at first, but now it felt natural, something comforting. Venom’s face formed, a black mass with too-sharp teeth and milky white eyes.

**How did you think we got to the shore?**

“You fucking asshole-”, it’s all he really got out before his arms seemingly moved on their own, pulling the symbiote’s head close to his chest in a tight embrace. His breath was shaky, tears threatening to run down his cheeks as he just held him. “You can’t scare me like that again, understood?”, he was surprised he even managed to get that sentence out at all, feeling the frog in his throat threatening to cut off all ability to speak.

**Understood.**

Venom’s voice was apologetic as it was held, black tendrils sprouting from the one that suspended its face in front of Eddie, these new tendrils moving to wrap around Eddie’s torso in a hug back, crawling up his back and brushing through his sleep-and-water tousled hair.   
Eddie relaxed beneath his touch, though he did not release Venom from his hold.

Fingers and tendrils synchronized in a soothing circular motion, though the feeling of Eddie’s hair was much different from the black goo that made up the symbiote.

“I need you to promise me, Venom.  _ Promise me _ you won’t scare me like that again.”, he said, voice still shaking and choked up, sniffing as the first few tears ran down his cheeks.

A few tendrils moved up to almost lovingly cup his cheeks, wiping away the tears that were falling from Eddie’s eyes now.

**We promise, Eddie. Won’t leave us ever again.**

“I’ll hold you to that.”, Eddie replied as Venom rejoined the rest of his body, a wave of warmth spreading through him, ceasing the cold shivers.

**Sleep, Eddie. We won’t leave.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bithc i was crying in the cinema
> 
> also funfact; during the "Goodbye, Eddie" "No! Venom!!" part the dude sitting behind me whispered in realization "It's a love story...."  
> almost lost my shit


	3. Midnight Snack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Venom occasionally gets hungry when Eddie sleeps. He gets creative about getting his fill.

They had boundaries set - no random taking over his body, only eating really bad guys. They were usually very good about those boundaries, but Venom occasionally got hungry when Eddie slept.

At first, he would wake Eddie, badger him into getting them tater tots, leftover pizza,  _ anything _ that would sate them long enough for Eddie to continue to sleep.

Well, that was until recently - Venom found himself becoming more and more reluctant to wake Eddie from his sleep ( _ especially _ after a long and hard day where Eddie passed out the second his head hit the pillow), so he took to taking Eddie’s body on little snack runs.

He made sure to never wake Eddie up, after all what Eddie didn’t know, didn’t hurt him.

 

Eddie groaned as he woke up, stretching before sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He didn’t know why, but he glanced down and practically threw himself out of his bed, hitting the floor with a heavy  _ thud _ .   
“Venom, what the fuck?!”, he exclaimed, staring at the bloody mess that were his sheets, managing to suppress the feeling of jelly knees enough to get up. “What happened when I was asleep?!”

 

**Don’t get mad, Eddie.**

 

“My sheets are more blood than sheets at the moment, V. What in the world could be worse than this-”, his eyes narrowed, staring at the window where his reflection showed an almost bashful-looking Venom. “What did you do?”

 

**We were hungry. Snack run. It wasn’t human, if it makes it better.**

 

Eddie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, shaking his head as he picked his sheets up, putting them into a pile on the floor to take to the nearby laundry place later. There was  _ no way _ he was going to be sleeping in bloody sheets.

“What did you even eat to leave this big of a blood stain?”, he asked as he turned on the TV, knowing full well that Venom’s little ‘Snack run’ would show up on the news.

 

“And today we are here in a farmstead outside of New York where four cows have been killed during the night. No clues as to who or what did this have been found yet, and motives are unclear as well.”, the reporter announced, behind them the licked-clean skeletons of four cows were visible, and the hooves piled up neatly to the side.

 

Eddie raised an eyebrow, blinking a few times. “Cows, V? How the hell did you find  _ cows _ in the middle of the night?”

 

**Google maps.**

 

At that reply, Eddie let out a sharp bark of laughter, shaking his head once more. “And you left the hooves in a pile, what the hell? You are a piece of work and a half, V, I’ve got to give you that.”

 

**We hate to disappoint.**

 

Eddie could feel the grin in that statement as he moved from the TV to the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge and cabinets for breakfast. “Just… no more snack runs, alright? We had a deal; no taking over my body without permission.”

 

**We can’t promise anything. But we will try.**

 

The next time Eddie knew Venom had gone on a midnight snack run was when he woke up with a lap full of feathers. He briefly wondered if the feather-filled pillow he had impulse-bought when he got his first regular paycheck after getting a steady job again had burst, but when he checked it, it was fine.

He sighed heavily, feeling the awkward silence in the space in his brain that Venom took up.

“Birds, Venom?”, it was less of a question, and more of a statement, one arm crossed over his chest as he picked up one of the feathers.

 

**Chickens.**

 

“Where the fuck did you find  _ Chickens _ in New York?”, he almost sounded amazed at the fact he managed to find Chickens in the city, inspecting the feather he had plucked out of his lap.

 

**Someone’s backyard.**

 

“As impressive as that is, V, we had a deal. No more snack runs.”, he chided as he began collecting the feathers to throw them in the trash. “No chocolate syrup for dinner tonight.”

 

**We said we would** **_try_ ** **.**

 

Eddie ignored the petulant hissing at the back of his mind, cleaning up the feathery mess Venom left in his bed. 


	4. Our name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Venom decides that he really likes Eddie's name

**Eddie.**

 

“Hm?”, Eddie hummed as he typed away at his laptop, so engrossed in his work he almost missed Venom’s voice inside his head.

 

**Eddie, Eeeeeddieeee.** **_Eddie._ **

 

“Something wrong?”, Eddie asked, confused as to why Venom was repeating his name of all things. Was he trying to get his attention? If so, he succeeded. Was he hungry? No, no, he would have said so. Then what-

 

**We like your name, Eddie. Rolls off the tongue.**

 

He snorted at that, smile forming on his face. “Is that why you keep repeating it? I’m sure there’s better names out there. I’ll have you know, I was almost named ‘Edward’.”, he felt Venom’s presence ripple as it thought, probably contemplating what he said.

 

**Eddie is perfect.** **_We_ ** **are perfect.**

 

Eddie had felt Venom’s head sprout from his back and was now hovering just above his shoulder grinning at him.

 

**_Rolls off the tongue._ **

 

Venom was practically  _ purring _ at him, its rough-yet-soft tongue licking over Eddie’s cheek.

“Aren’t you feeling affectionate today.”, Eddie mused, briefly tearing his eyes away from his work to press a kiss to Venom’s teeth.

Having your lips so close to so many too-sharp teeth would freak any other person out, but Eddie wasn’t any other person.

 

At the kiss Venom purred only more, tongue slipping out from between its teeth and licking at Eddie’s lips, which gladly parted for it.

 

**Only for us.**

 

Eddie let Venom’s tongue slip into his mouth, past his gag reflex and down his throat, almost cutting off his air supply. He never thought having an alien’s tongue down his throat would be the hottest thing he had ever experienced, but here he was.

This wasn’t a sex thing though, not right now, right now they just swam in each others affection, which fed back to each other through their bond in an endless loop - it was so sweet it nearly brought tears to his eyes.

He reached out, cupping the Symbiote’s cheek with one hand, the other hand pressing against the table. They only parted again when Eddie’s lungs eventually began hurting from a lack of oxygen.

 

“So, what brought this on? Not that I’m complaining.”, Eddie asked after Venom’s tongue retreated from his throat, the hand cupping the Symbiote’s cheek not moving from where it was placed, heart feeling as though it swelled in his chest when Venom leaned its head into his hand.

 

**We wanted your attention. And affection.**

 

He chuckled softly, shaking his head before pressing another soft kiss to its teeth. “Let me finish this article, then I’ll give you all the affection you want, alright?”

 

**And chocolate.**

 

“Don’t get cocky.”, he quipped as he turned back towards his work, still smiling when Venom huffed as it returned to the back of his brain, staying there as a comforting constant presence.

 

**Eddie is still better than Edward.**

 

“Yeah, I think so too.”, he replied as he continued typing, smiling to himself.  _ Ourselves. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is pure fluff. I love them, ok?


	5. New to the Neighborhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie moves into his new apartment - and he meets the neighbors.

From New York, to San Franscisco, back to New York. It wasn’t a change he had expected, but here he was.

He couldn’t visit Anne and Dan as often as he liked, and they couldn’t keep him from buying solely Tater Tots and Chocolate to live off of, but what can you do.

 

“Thanks, V.”, he said as he picked up his first box of stuff - granted he didn’t own much, but it was still enough to fit into a number of boxes. The one he was carrying at the moment was the heaviest one, and Venom was gracious enough to help him out a little.

He had also decided to invest in some bluetooth headphones so he could at least talk to his other without looking like a madman to everyone else.

 

**No problem.**

 

He sighed as he carried the box into the elevator of the apartment complex - this one was actually nice, though he hadn’t expected to be moving into Queens. He was a touch nervous about Stark Tower being so close by, as well as the presence of so many superheroes based there.

He just wanted to avoid having a run-in with any of them when they were out finding bad guys to eat.

 

**We will eat their heads as well.**

 

“Don’t think that’ll happen, buddy. I’ve shown you videos of what happened here a while back, I’ll peg the Avengers somewhere on Riot’s level of power.”, he mused as the elevator went up.

 

**_Nothing_ ** **can stop us, Eddie.**

 

“Say that to the Hulk. He’s bigger than us, you know?”

 

**So was Riot.**

 

“Not the point.”, and in that moment the elevator doors opened, and he went to his new apartment, briefly glancing around to see if the coast was clear before Venom helpfully opened the door for him, and he could set the box down.  _ One down, four more to go. _

 

Lather, rinse, repeat, and he was bringing the last box up - this one filled with books, newspapers, and other such things he needed for his job.

He had been so engrossed in his conversation with Venom, he nearly bumped into a woman about to enter the elevator with what he guessed was her son.

 

“Oh, shit-- I’m so sorry about that.”, he apologized after bumping into her with his box, setting it down. “I’ll talk to you later, bye.”, he said and ‘hung up’ on his ‘call’ - their new code for  _ Venom, please shut up for five minutes. _

“Are you ok?”, he asked, not wanting to make a bad first impression on the new neighbors.

“Oh, no, it’s alright. Are you our new neighbor? I’m May Parker, and this is my nephew, Peter.”, May gestured to Peter, who was standing next to her.

“Hi, sir.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Eddie Brock.”, Eddie surprised himself with how easy he found it to introduce himself to these people - perhaps the fact these people were complete strangers, and didn’t know about his 6-month depression bout after Anne. And perhaps the distance from all that happened there did him some good.

“Eddie Brock? Like- Like from the Eddie Brock show? Oh my god, it’s so nice to meet you!”, Peter suddenly seemed to be all nerves, practically vibrating where he stood, reaching out to shake Eddie’s hand.

“All me, though I do fewer big stunts these days. More ‘corrupt landowners’ and less ‘big corporations scamming its employees’.”, he shook Peter’s hand, pointedly ignoring the growling sound Venom made at the back of his mind.

“It’s still  _ so _ incredible to meet you- wow I had no idea you were moving next door!”, he continued along that line, rambling to himself as May began tugging him into the elevator.

“Welcome to Queens, Eddie.”, May said, evidently amused by Peter’s rambling about  _ Oh my god, Aunt May, that was Eddie Brock, we live next to Eddie Brock now! _

 

“They seemed nice.”, he said as he walked into his new apartment, raising an eyebrow when Venom simply grumbled. “What’s up, V? Is this because the kid shook my hand?”

 

**Don’t like other people touching us. This body is for** **_us_ ** **alone.**

 

Eddie laughed. “Love, Peter is  _ at most _ 17\. Relax.”, with that he began unpacking, and soon enough the apartment actually looked like  _ home _ . Well, save for the lack of food.

 

**We need chocolate. And tater tots.**

 

“Sure do, as well as some actual food. I can’t keep living off of chocolate and tater tots alone - I’ll get scurvy or some shit.”, he wrinkled his nose at the memory of a picture he saw of someone that had scurvy.

 

**We can’t get scurvy.**

 

“Not the point. Point is, humans get sick of eating the same thing for days on end. How about burritos for dinner?”

 

**Fine.**

 

He chuckled at the huff he got from Venom, fond smile on his face as he grabbed his wallet and keys to find the nearest grocery store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is going to be related to this AU, so watch out ;)


	6. Friendly neighborhood Spiderman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Venom have a little run-in with Spiderman during one of their nightly outings to eat the heads of bad guys.

First time they saw Spiderman, was on the way home. They had made a stop at a burrito stand, coffee in hand as they took their burrito and continued walking. Then, Spider-man zipped over their head, whopping as he ricochet back and forth between buildings.

 

**What was that?**

 

“Spiderman. C’mon, V, I wrote an article about him  _ yesterday _ , you couldn’t have forgotten.”, he teased, watching Spiderman swing around the corner of a building and out of sight.

 

**Can we eat him?**

 

“No, we can’t. He’s one of the good guys, remember?”, that reply got him a huff from the Symbiote, and Eddie rolled his eyes. “Relax, V. Just because we got another hero running around the neighborhood doesn’t mean we won’t have any bad guys to eat. New York is only a  _ little _ better than San Francisco.”, he said as he made his way back to the apartment, greeting May when she came out of the building.

 

**You like her.**

 

“She’s nice, so yes, I like her.”, he could feel Venom sulking, and he sighed again. “Not like I did with Anne, you know that. Besides, I have you, don’t I?”, he knew it was dangerous business, stroking Venom’s ego, but he felt he could do that at the moment, at least to stop Venom from sulking.

 

**My Eddie. Mine.** **_Ours. Nobody else’s._ **

 

“Needy.”, he mused, entering the elevator and going up to his apartment - they were still getting used to the increased size of the apartment, since it is very different to the cramped little hovel that his apartment in San Francisco was. “One could almost claim you’re  _ jealous _ .”, he grinned when Venom grumbled inside his head.

 

**We are** **_not_ ** **jealous.**

 

“Sure you’re not.”, he said, taking a hearty bite of burrito to silence Venom for now.

 

The second time they met Spider-man was during one of their nightly outings. Walk around the back alleys of the right parts of New York enough and you’ll run into  _ someone _ that needs their head bitten off.

They had just found that someone - a group of men that had just robbed a bank.

 

Being enveloped in Venom gave a sense of euphoric power that nothing else in the world could replicate. They were on top of the world together, invulnerable,  _ unstoppable- _

The bank robber they were holding in their grasp was ripped from them, webbed to the wall out of nowhere. They whipped their head in the direction of where the web that had snatched their dinner from them came from, growling as they grabbed the red figure shooting towards them and held them out in front of them.

 

“ _ Holy shit---  _ You are way bigger than I thought!”, Spider-man exclaimed, eyes of his suit widening in a way that almost made Eddie think of Venom’s own face. That thought was interrupted by another memory - Peter freaking out about meeting Eddie Brock by the elevator, eyes wide and words tumbling over each other in excitement.

 

**Peter?**

 

Venom echoed Eddie’s words, eyes narrowing in confusion. _The kid next door was Spider-man?_

 

“How do you know my-- I mean, I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir!”, and before he could speak more Venom dropped him, Spiderman landing on his feet as he just stared up at them. “You uh.. You’re not gonna bite my head off, are you? ‘Cause that would be bad.”

 

**We promised Eddie we wouldn’t.**

 

“We? Wait, Eddie-?”, Spiderman tilted his head in confusion, briefly reminding them of a confused puppy.

With that Venom returned to within Eddie’s body, black veins briefly visible on his skin before even those disappeared.

“ _ Mr. Brock?? _ ”, he sounded even more confused now, hands holding onto his head before extending to open-handedly point at Eddie, back at the corpses, and back at Eddie. “What was that?  _ We? _ I just--”, he was evidently having some sort of crisis over there, so Eddie took hold of his shoulders.

“Peter, relax. It’s not as bad as it looks.”, he realized the hypocrisy in that statement when he remembered they were surrounded by headless corpses.

“You bit someone’s head off! Well, maybe not you, but that whatever it was!”

“Venom.”

“Venom?”

“That’s its- well,  _ our _ name. It’s a long story.”, he was going to continue talking if it hadn’t been for the fact that the burglar had managed to free his arm.

 

Eddie barely had time to respond to the cock of the gun before Peter let out a shout of alarm and he was shoved, the fire of a gun ringing through the night.

There is a split second between being Eddie and being Venom where Eddie’s body was vulnerable. A split second when the symbiote hadn’t fully enveloped its host yet.

“Mr. Brock!!”, Peter called out, hands automatically clasping in front of his mouth as he watched Eddie stumble back, one hand at his side where red began to seep through his hoodie.

“Venom--”, he wheezed, legs threatening to give out.

 

**_Eddie!!_ **

 

Venom’s shriek of his name was deafening in his ears, lurching forward as Venom fully manifested around him, roaring in rage at the burglar still trying to escape the net.

The distance between Venom and the burglar was covered in no time, Venom snarling with rage, nearly crushing the burglar’s face with one of its clawed hands.

 

**_Big mistake._ **

 

“Hey, hey, you can’t eat him!”, Peter piped up, shooting net - once again re-attaching the burglar to the wall and removing him from Venom’s grasp. “We- We gotta go, oh man the cops are gonna be _so_ _pissed_ when they see this.”

 

**He hurt Eddie. Hurt** **_us_ ** **.**

 

Venom objected, though the thoughts of arguing disappeared when sirens became audible.

Without more of a warning beyond a growl he scooped Peter up and vaulted up the side of one of the buildings making the alleyway, and by the time the police arrived they were long gone, up on one of the taller roofs of the buildings.

 

When Venom finally retracted back into Eddie, Eddie collapses onto his knees, dry heaving until a soft  _ plink _ was heard and the shell of the bullet that had hit him dropped on the roof below him.

“Was there no better way to do that, V?”, he asked, voice rough from feeling like he was going to throw up, moving from bent over to sitting on the edge with his back facing the skyline.

Peter was still freaking out about everything, stammering to himself, trying to comprehend that his neighbor could turn into a giant goop alien that bit peoples’ heads off.

“Peter, relax. Venom’s fine. Just.. don’t tell anyone?”, he hoped that Peter, at least, was ok at keeping a secret. Eddie knew he himself wasn’t so good, and he hoped Peter was better than him.

“Uh, I mean, I don’t know, I-- Yes???”, Peter was obviously still distressed about the news, but he was beginning to slow down. “S-So uh… Is Venom, like, in your head, or?”   
“Hm… Yes, and no. If he’s not out, I can hear him in my head, but it’s not really a separate thing. Long story.”

 

**You are very trusting, Eddie.**

 

Eddie ignored Venom’s growling, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair, feeling Venom’s tendrils wrap around his arms and torso, tenderly brushing over where the bullet had hit him, and his hoodie was still stained red.

 

**We got hurt.**

 

“You fixed me, didn’t you, V?”, Eddie mumbled, finally getting up. “Come on, I’m pretty sure you have class tomorrow, Peter. Let’s get back home.”, he waved for Peter to follow him as Venom once again enveloped him.

 

**Will keep us safe this time, Eddie.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not 100% happy with this one, but I really didn't want to rewrite everything.


	7. Not-so-old Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Occasionally Eddie dreams of almost losing Venom. Venom is always there to remind him that they did not lose each other.

Occasionally Eddie dreamt of it - of what happened by the rocket. He thought he had won, he had knocked Drake down into the sea, they were  _ safe _ ,  _ where was Venom--? _

Then, a sharp stabbing pain unlike any he had ever felt before, his spine and insides aflame like he had been burned with acid, being lifted off the ground and nearly split in two before being dropped like a ragdoll. He hadn’t mourned the prospect of his own death, no, he was terrified that Venom would die with him. He reached out to where the symbiote had been rickochet to. His vision went darker and darker, his body colder, and oddly enough everything was silent save for his waning breath.

 

_ Venom, I can’t lose you, I can’t die like this, you will die,  _ **_we_ ** _ will die-- _

 

He sat up gasping, tears on his face, shaking and covered in cold sweat. His hands raced to where he had been stabbed, clutching on to his scarred skin - the scar remained despite Venom fixing them. The scar would always be there to remind them that they almost lost each other.

 

**Eddie, you did not lose us.**

 

Venom’s voice helped, pulled him back into the real, his soothing presence in him -  _ around  _ him - soothing his nerves and ceased his shivers, though the tears remained. In fact, his tears only became worse.

A sob wracked his body, one hand over his mouth as more tears began running down his cheeks and onto his hand and lap.

 

**You are afraid.**

 

“ _ No shit _ .”, he hissed, perhaps a touch more sharply than he meant to, his other hand now clutching his hair as another sharp gasping sob wracked him, shoulders shaking. “ _ Shit… _ ‘m sorry, V. This is so..  _ Fuck _ , this is such a  _ stupid _ thing to get  _ this _ upset over.”, and yet the tears kept coming, phantom pains tingling along the scar on his torso. “ _ Fuck. _ ”

 

**We won’t lose us again. We promise.**

 

Venom’s voice was soothing, ignoring the hissing jab Eddie had shot in its direction before. Instead, its tendrils congealed out of Eddie’s skin, wrapping around him in a black gooey blanket. It covered them, soft kisses against his skin and massaging tense muscles and wiping tears from swollen red cheeks and eyes.   
Their bond was wide open, Eddie’s lingering fear and despair countered by Venom’s affection and love for him. Venom’s head manifested, pressing their foreheads together, and black tendrils guiding Eddie’s hands away from his face and towards the symbiote’s, lettings its host hold on to its head instead. His iron grip didn’t hurt against the almost-slimy material the symbiote was made out of.

 

**We want to fix your hurt, Eddie. What do we do?**

 

As much as the soft touches seemed to help, Venom still couldn’t get rid of the  _ hurt _ coursing through Eddie, and he hated feeling of being unable to help Eddie.   
“Just… stay like this with me. Please.”, Eddie eventually replied, tugging Venom’s head down to pull it into a hug. “Don’t leave.”

 

**We won’t ever leave.** **_We_ ** **are Venom, and** **_nothing_ ** **will come between us again.**

 

They lost track of how long they stayed like this, Venom wrapped around Eddie and Eddie clinging to Venom like if he let go the symbiote would just disappear. Venom regularly reassured Eddie that Riot was gone, they would never get hurt like that ever again, that they were safe, that they were  _ Venom _ . One unstoppable,  _ inseparable _ , whole.

By the time Eddie had finally calmed down again, the sun was beginning to shine through the window, and the soft chirping of birds became audible.

“ _ Shit _ … Thank you, love.”, he mumbled, sniffling as he leaned his head into the tendrils still gently removing tears from his cheeks. His eyes and cheeks were still flushed, and his breath still a little shaky, but he was calm.

 

**No problem.**

 

Venom gently licked the last tear stain from Eddie’s cheek, which caused the man to give a short chuckle, sniffing again. “Back it up, you lizard.”, Venom preened under the fact that it managed to calm Eddie again to the point where they could quip back and forth again, grinning at Eddie.

 

**We are** **_your_ ** **lizard.**

 

That made Eddie give a full-on laugh. Eddie’s laugh were one of Venom’s favorite things to hear from Eddie - it was a rich sound from deep within Eddie’s chest. It made the crow-feet by his eyes more obvious, and his entire face seemed to just  _ light up _ .

Venom loved Eddie, happy or sad, but it much preferred happy Eddie. After all, what made Eddie happy made  _ them _ happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is gonna be the third installment of the spidey-next-door au ;)


	8. Up in the Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie is 'invited' into Stark Tower for a conversation. Venom isn't having it.
> 
> WARNING: THERE ARE MENTIONS OF THE NASTIES(tm) IN THIS CHAPTER - IT'S JUST A PARAGRAPH BUT WATCH OUT

When he was brought to Stark Tower by shady official-looking guys in suits, he  _ knew _ Peter must have let something slip to his Avenger friends about his situation with Venom.

Hell, when they were first asked to come with them, Venom had been mere moments from showing and eating every single one of their heads. But alas, they were in public ( **That’s not our concern** ), and when he tried to refuse and leave, they had  _ some _ sort of noise-making device that made a shrill noise that erred just on that side of painful, incapacitating both Venom and Eddie through their bond.

 

Now Eddie was sitting in a room that almost reminded him of a waiting room with Venom growling beneath his skin ready to bite the head off the first person that walked through the doors into the room.

 

When Peter burst in, Venom hissed in his head. They  _ knew _ Peter must have leaked this to the Avengers.

“Stark, Peter? The  _ Avengers?  _ I  _ asked _ you not to tell anyone.”, he got up before Peter had the chance to talk, arms crossed, frowning and eyebrows furrowed.

“I didn’t mean to, sir, it just slipped out, and I-- I wanted to apologize. Are.. Are you angry with me?”, he was fidgeting, head tucked between his shoulders, a worried look of anticipation on his face.

“ _ Angry? _ I’m-”, Eddie sighed, forcing himself to calm down. Yelling at Peter won’t solve anything, plus he was only a kid. “I’m not angry. I’m just… disappointed, I guess?”, that answer was evidently worse, seeing as Peter’s face immediately fell and he looked to the ground with a soft  _ Oh. _

God damnit, why did Peter have to hit every single one of the paternal nerves he didn’t know he had.

 

**He sold us out, Eddie!**

 

“He’s a  _ kid _ , V. Yelling at him won’t make this go away.”, he hissed before going over to Peter. “C’mere.”, he said as he opened his arms. Peter looked like he could use a hug, and he pointedly ignored Venom’s snarling at the back of his mind.

Peter looked surprised at that, blinking a few times. “Mr. Brock?”

“I’m offering. If it were up to Venom, this whole building would be levelled right now.”

 

**And we’d have our fill on heads.**

 

“No eating the good guys, V, we have a deal.”, he only got grumbling from the symbiote at that, and a hug full of Peter.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Brock. I really didn’t mean to tell…”, Peter sounded choked up, and Eddie was quick to gently pet his hair, shushing him in a way that almost reminded him of his childhood.

“It’s fine, Peter. There’s nothing either of us can do about it now anyways.”, he only let go of Peter again when the door opened again.

He recognized the people that walked through the door as Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, and the sight of Tony Stark in particular made Eddie’s blood boil, and in particular made Venom snarl even louder in his ears.

 

“Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner. To what do I owe the pleasure?”, where his voice was previously soft and almost fatherly, it was now cold as ice, jaw clenching, eyebrows furrowed and eyes squinting at them both.

Eddie didn’t like Stark, had done investigations on him before, and he didn’t even want to  _ think _ about how many people lost their lives thanks to  _ Tony Stark’s _ weapons.

 

**We should eat his head.**

 

“Mr. Brock, how nice of you to join us.”, Tony greeted, charismatic smile on his face, though it was wholly lost on Eddie.

“We didn’t exactly get a choice.”, Eddie’s arms were crossed once again, glaring at Tony.

“Ah, yes, I apologize for how forceful my employees were, though I  _ was _ hoping you’d come and meet us willingly. After all, Peter here told us some  _ very _ interesting things about you.”, he patted Peter’s shoulder, and Eddie’s protective paternal streak flared up to the point where even Venom picked up on it, and they were just about ready to tear that hand off of him.

“I don’t believe I ever gave you permission to stick your nose into my business.”

“Isn’t that what you do as a career though? Sticking your nose into others business?”

Eddie’s eyebrows only furrowed more, and there was the barest hint of black at the tips of his fingers as he dug his digits into his hoodie, fingers threatening to turn into claws.

 

Peter and Bruce exchanged worried glances at these two continued jabbing at each other, worried something bad would happen if they kept going.

 

“I don’t stick my nose into  _ personal  _ business, Mr. Stark. I report on things that concern public interest.”

“Hm, the last time I checked someone infected with an extra-terrestrial parasite eating people’s heads  _ is _ a concern of public interest.”

At the word  _ parasite _ Eddie tensed. The only person allowed to call it that without consequence was  _ him _ . “Big mistake.”

And with that, Venom came out, snarling right into Tony’s face, countless too-sharp teeth inches from his skin, the symbiote mere moments from biting off the man’s head.

 

**_Parasite?!_ ** **You deal in death, recruit a** **_child_ ** **to do your dirty work, and then you** **_dare_ ** **talk down to us?!**

 

“Whoa, whoa, Mr. Brock! Venom? Venom. Please don’t hurt Mr. Stark!”, Peter tried to get between them with Bruce pulling Tony back, whispering to him to  _ please stop antagonizing it, we just wanted to talk, remember? _

Venom only reluctantly backed away, still growling menacingly.

 

**Be happy Eddie likes you, Peter, or we would not be as forgiving.**

 

Venom returned to Eddie’s body, though Eddie was still visibly pissed, black veins taking longer than normal to dissipate completely.

“We don’t like being called being called a parasite.”, Eddie simply said, still glaring at Tony.

“We got off on the wrong foot, I believe. Um, we only wanted to talk.”, Bruce finally piped up before Tony had the chance to speak up first.

“That’s one way to put it. What do you want?”

“We wanted to know if you would be a danger to, well,  _ people _ , and if you would consider joining the Avengers.”

“We’re only a danger to the bad guys.”, Eddie glanced over to Peter at the question of joining the Avengers. Peter looked stunned, but also  _ hopeful _ . Damn you, paternal instincts. “.. We will think on the offer, Dr. Banner. But, if we accept, we want to make it clear that we do  _ not _ work for Stark.”

“Of course. Nice meeting you, by the way, I’m Bruce.”, Bruce offered a smile, a twinge of nervosity in it that Venom immediately picked up on.

“Eddie. Or Venom, if you’re talking to my other.”

“Your other…?”

“The big guy.”

“Oh, right, of course. I  _ did _ have questions on that. But, um, I think we can go somewhere less like an interrogation cell for that.”, Bruce was desperately trying to clear the air from the lingering animosity between Tony and Eddie.

“We would prefer that.”, Eddie was using the royal ‘we’ pronoun on purpose this whole time, always reminding them that Venom was a part of him,  _ was _ him. It made Venom preen beneath his skin, though that was still overshadowed by their continuous want to bite Tony Stark’s head off.

 

They were led into what looked like a communal lounging area - a bar, couches, a small kitchen, bookcases filled to the brim with a wide variety of books, topped off with a large glass wall overlooking new york.

 

**Fancy. Eddie, we can see our apartment from here.**

 

_ Not the time, V. _

 

**Hehehe.**

 

There were a few other people there at the moment, which Eddie recognized to be Thor, Captain America, and Black Widow, though the latter two were just leaving. Bruce brought Eddie over to the large horseshoe-shaped couch, sitting with him to talk.   
“So, um, about Venom.. How did, well,  _ that _ whole situation happen?”, Bruce pushed his glasses up on his nose, seemingly genuinely interested, though Venom and Eddie still did not fully trust him.   
“Carlton Drake found Venom and other symbiotes, and kidnapped homeless people to test how the symbiotes would bond to them. Things happened, and we found each other, and it all came to an end when we blew up that rocket that would have brought millions of other symbiotes from space to destroy the earth.”, he didn’t want to give too many details, but the essentials were there for Bruce to piece together the gist of the story.

 

It continued like that for a while - Bruce asked questions, and Eddie gave answers that got the essentials across but never gave much detail at all.   
“I- I have to say though, it’s nice knowing someone who lives with a monster inside them as well.”, Bruce said, an almost bashful smile on his face, adjusting his glasses for what felt like the millionth time of their conversation.   
“As well?”   
“The Hulk. No one  _ really _ understands what it’s like living with him in my head, you know? I guess it’s just nice to finally be around someone who does.”, he fidgeted again, almost seeming relieved at Venom’s presence within Eddie. “And, well, your outburst before seems to suggest a similar situation with you - keeping the monster inside so to say.”   
Eddie puffed his cheeks out, heavily exhaling with pursed lips, eyebrows furrowed and avoiding eye contact. “I wouldn’t necessarily describe the relationship I have with Venom like  _ that _ .”, Venom grinned inside his head, helpfully supplying memories of the activities they had earlier that morning.

 

_ Their bond was wide open, black tendrils caressing, stroking, clinging to sweaty skin, heaving chest, spread legs, and  _ **_inside_ ** _. Their pleasure looping back and forth through their bond in an endless loop, pulling them higher and higher until it all came crashing down in a white-hot explosion of ecstasy, leaving them both blinded, pliant, boneless for longer than they would ever admit to someone else. _

 

Eddie coughed, cheeks flushing a little as he internally shooed that memory back where it belonged, still avoiding eye contact. “Yeah, really not the same.”   
“Oh? How so?”   
“Uh… Well, you know how i referred to Venom and I as ‘us’? Yeah, we’re basically one and the same at this point. Well, we  _ can _ be separate, but firstly it would kill Venom after a while, and secondly, I’m a mess without V making sure I actually do normal things such as sleep and eat.”, even if the food Venom usually had them eat consisted of tater tots and chocolate syrup and  _ only _ that.   
“Ah…”, Bruce seemed almost let down at the news, frowning as he looked down, only to start back into a straight sitting position when Thor’s hands clapped down on his shoulders.

 

“Bruce! I see we have a new companion joining us in the tower!”, Thor’s voice was loud and genuinely joyful - a big contrast compared to how serious everyone else seemed around here. “It is nice to meet you, I am Thor, God of Thunder.”, he grinned as he extended his hand for a handshake, which Eddie took after a few moments of hesitation and again trying to ignore Venom’s growling.   
“Eddie Brock. Uh.. I’m an investigative journalist.”, oh man his job sounded incredibly lame next to a literal god.   
Thor’s handshake was firm, strong, and  _ warm _ , and Eddie could feel Venom’s possessiveness flaring up through their bond, mentally warning Venom to behave himself. Alas, his warning fell on deaf ears as Venom’s head manifested next to his shoulder, staring both Thor and Bruce down.

 

**We are not fooled by your niceties.**

  
“Oh, Jesus! It can do that?!”, Bruce exclaimed, practically jumping into the God’s arms, clutching onto the one arm still on the scientist’s shoulder, looking just a touch frazzled.   
“Greetings to you too, Eddie’s gooey friend.”, Thor did not seem to be perturbed by Venom’s presence at all, extending his hand to shake one of Venom’s tendrils.   
“Uh… Yeah, that’s a thing that happens. V, please don’t bite his hand off, I can tell you want to.”, he gave the symbiote’s head a nudge with his hand.

 

**_We_ ** **can do many things you could only dream of. And** **_we_ ** **do not appreciate being kidnapped, interrogated, and being called a** **_parasite_ ** **and a** **_monster_ ** **.**

 

Venom’s words dripped with venom (hah, get it), its voice more growl than speech at this point, black tendrils manifesting beneath Eddie’s clothing and clinging to him, making sure Eddie knew how possessive he was feeling.

“V, calm down, wanting to eat everyone in the building isn’t going to make things better. Besides, we only eat the bad guys. We have a deal.”, he gently tugged Venom’s head back from where it was now getting into Bruce’s and Thor’s faces, keeping the symbiote’s head tucked against where his shoulder and neck joined. Venom did not move from where it was tucked against Eddie’s skin, only ceasing the possessively growling when Thor’s hand finally moved away.   
“He seems pleasant.”, Thor said, smile no smaller than before, leaning down so that his elbows were resting on Bruce’s shoulders and chin hovering just above his head.

“He is, just a bit... possessive.”, he made gentle circular soothing motions with his fingers on Venom’s head, hoping it would at least calm him down.

 

**Eddie is** **_mine._ **

 

“I know, V, I wasn’t going to suggest otherwise.”, he reassured the symbiote, though now less focused on Venom and himself and more about the fact that Thor and Bruce seemed to be  _ very _ comfortable around each other - in a way he wholeheartedly knew wasn’t just platonic.

 

“Bruce, you’re tense, what’s going on?”, Thor said, looking down to Bruce, eyebrow raising.

“Just…  _ stress _ . It’s nothing to worry about, really.”, Bruce’s cheeks unmistakably flushed, and Eddie briefly exchanged glances with Venom.  _ Was this really happening right now? _

“We’ll have to think of a way to get rid of that later.”, and fucking hell, Thor  _ winked _ at Bruce, and Eddie briefly wondered if this is what his friends felt like back when he was with Anne and they openly flirted with each other. Thor just grinned at the way Bruce’s cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red, leaning down further to press a kiss to his cheek. “Well, I have to go now unfortunately. See you later.”, he said to Eddie and Venom, patting Bruce’s shoulders before walking out, leaving Bruce, Eddie, and Venom in an awkward silence, though Venom had snaked back into Eddie’s body at this point.

 

“You two seem happy together.”, Eddie eventually broke the silence, hoping it would clear the air some.

“Ah, well, yes. We are. He doesn’t seem to mind the Hulk either.”, Bruce’s smile was bashful, scratching the back of his neck, staring out of the large window and out to new york where the sun was beginning to wane.

“Well… We said we’d consider the invitation to join the Avengers, but we’ll think about it. Later. Can we go home now?”, he really  _ did _ want to leave, lest he had another run-in with Tony Stark, and Venom really  _ did _ bite off his head this time.

“Oh! Right, of course, I’ll show you out.”, he said, hastily jumping off the couch, seemingly having the same train of thought here. Keep Eddie/Venom away from Tony and things won’t go bad.

 

Eddie visibly relaxed when he finally got back onto the streets of new york, making his way back to his apartment.

“Not how I imagined our trip to the store to go.”, he said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, smiling when Venom formed a hand to clasp with his.

 

**We still need tater tots. And a** **_lot_ ** **more chocolate.**

 

“Yeah… I wonder how much we’ll need to wash the sour taste Stark left in our mouth.”, he quipped, chuckling at the gagging noise Venom made in his head. “What, the thought of him disgusts you that much?”

 

**If the thought of him tastes bitter, his actual flesh must taste even worse.**

 

Eddie laughed, shaking his head as he walked to the convenience store near their apartment building. “I never thought I’d see the day you don’t want to eat someone’s head.”

 

**We still want to, it will just taste really bad.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, i woke up way earlier than i'd like so yall are gettin this chapter early  
> also HEY @ SELF WHERE DID ALL THIS EXTRA WRITING COME FROM, WE'RE WELL OVER 2500 WORDS


	9. Unpleasant Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Investigative reporting has an ugly side to it, Eddie knows that. Fortunately he now has an ever-hungry symbiote to keep him safe.
> 
> WARNING; THERE ARE DISCUSSIONS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING OF MINORS IN THIS CHAPTER. BEWARE.

Being an investigative reporter came with its own dangers. Talking to unpleasant and often dangerous people used to make him nervous and jittery just before and after. He had been on the business end of knives and guns more times than he can count.

 

**We would have bit their heads off.**

 

With Venom with him now, though, that layer of fear was laid to rest. Anyone that tries to harm Eddie has to deal with Venom - and Venom was all too happy to bite bad people’s heads off.

 

Right now he was dealing with his least favorite kinds of investigations - he was following clues and rumors of a human trafficking ring. There was a trend; young girls from poor neighborhoods have been going missing, and the ages are what have been making his blood run cold. The youngest victim was 8, the oldest 16, with other victims everything in-between.

His leads have led him to an old hotel on the outskirts of town, gulping as he approached the building.

 

**You are afraid.**

 

“One way to put it. Human trafficking is always something that sticks with you, and it never gets any easier to look at.”, he sighed, quietly making his way up the fire exit. “You know if anyone’s in there right now?”

 

**A lot on the ground floor. A couple on the first and second floor. A** **_lot_ ** **of small heartbeats on the third.**

 

“That’s gotta be the victims then.”, he clenched his fist inside his pocket as he slid open a window, slipping inside.

 

**We will eat all of their heads.**

 

“Leave some for the police, V. You can have the bad guys up here, downstairs is for the police to handle.”, Venom huffed at that, but he accepted it. For now.

They were surprisingly stealthy - though it wasn’t a hard-to-accomplish feat. The halls were practically abandoned, and whenever it was they  _ were _ caught Venom was quick to devour the person that found them. How  _ that  _ stayed unnoticed, Eddie could only guess.

 

They made their way to the third floor, letting Venom guide him towards the  _ small heartbeats _ Venom had sensed earlier.

He looked around before quietly opening the door, and he sight he got broke his heart - it always did.

A group of about 20 girls of varying ages immediately jumping to their feet, huddling together for safety as they stared at him, terrified.

“I’m Eddie Brock, I’m not here to hurt you.”, he said, voice soft and gentle, trying to make himself seem as small of a threat to them as possible. “I’m here to take you back to your homes.”

“They’ve got guns.”, one of the older girls said, tucking the (what he guessed to be) the youngest of the lot closer.

“I won’t let you get hurt, I promise. I know you’re scared, but if we’re quick we can-”, he was interrupted by a shout around the corner of the corridor.

 

**Looks like someone found our last snack.**

 

“ _ Shit. _ ”, he hissed, peeking past the door, ducking back into the room when he spotted a small entourage of armed men.

The girls huddled together more in fear, staring at Eddie with wide tear-filled eyes.

“Please don’t let them hurt us.”, another girl whispered, sniffling softly.

“I won’t let them.”, he promised, backing into the room facing the door.

 

The armed men burst into the room they immediately pointed their guns at him, and he put his hands up.

“Get on the ground!!”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“I said  _ get on the ground!! _ ”, the man that was shouting reared back his rifle to knock it over Eddie’s head, but before it connected with Eddie’s head the nuzzle of it was grabbed by a massive black clawed hand.

“Bad move.”, and then Venom came out, sinister grin on his face, tongue licking over his dozens of needle-like teeth.

 

**Cover your eyes. And ears.**

 

Venom glanced back to the girls behind them, who had fallen into stunned silence, only nodding at the command, covering their eyes and ears dutifully. When they did, Venom let out a dark chuckle, and then the men fired.

The bullets didn’t affect them, the symbiote’s matter absorbed them and had them harmlessly plink to the ground. They snarled as he slashed around themselves, black claws cutting through the men's bodies like water, dark crimson filling their mouth, bones crunching and gore splattering the wooden floor below them.

It was over quicker than Venom liked, but they were on a bit of a time crunch at the moment.

 

They glanced over to the girls who were once again staring at them, mouths open in shock.

“You.. You killed them.”, the older girl from before said, disbelief in her voice. She gulped, taking one of the other girls’ hands and tugging her along to follow her towards Venom, and the other girls seemed to just automatically follow. “..  _ Gracias _ , Mr. Brock.”

 

**We are Venom.**

 

“Then  _ gracias _ , Venom.”, she said, hugging the massive symbiote.

Venom was stunned by this, doing their equivalent of blinking in surprise before they carefully placed a large claw on the girl’s back, almost tender in their touch.

 

**We can leave now. We can get you home again.**

 

Their voice now a soft low rumble rather than the growling tone they had before, letting the girl hold onto his one of the large claws on their hand as they walked, eyes narrowing and pausing when the noise of more feet rushing up the stairs became audible.

 

**Get to the window, and down the ladder. We will keep you safe.**

 

The girls nodded, running to the window they had pointed out as Venom licked their chops once again, growling deep in their chest as more armed men came into the corridor.

 

**So many snacks, so little time.**

 

They knew they were on a time crunch, but they took their time tearing the man they found out to be running the place apart. He didn’t get to die quickly, he died the slowest and most brutal death of them all.

Only when the man laid mutilated and in pieces on the floor did they go to the window, returning to Eddie’s body and climbing down to where the girls had gathered out of sight from the entrance.

Thankfully, Venom was holding the phone for him as he filled the police in on the human trafficking ring he just uncovered, giving them the address before going over to where the girls were hiding.

 

“The police will be here soon, they’ll take you home.”, he said as the girls began shuffling out from where they were hiding. “You’re safe now.”

“Did you kill him?”, one of the girls asked, tears still filling her eyes. “The man that did this to us?”

“.. I- yes. Can this be out secret, though? Venom being me isn’t exactly a known thing.”, the girls nodded, smiling even through their tears. One if the youngest girls lifted her finger to her lips, giggling when Eddie crouched down to her eye-level and repeated the gesture to her. “Thank you.”, he gave her a soft pat on the head, causing her to giggle a little more.

 

Soon enough, the police arrived, collecting the girls and taking statements from them and Eddie. Venom thankfully kept him from getting blood on them, so when he told them that people were dead when he got there, they did not really question him - he was a meek-looking guy without any real combat experience, and the girls speaking of a ‘dark angel’ saving them was chalked up to the trauma they had endured.

 

**We’re heroes, Eddie.**

 

“Yeah, we are.”, Eddie smiled as he put on his helmet and hopping onto his motorcycles, waving goodbye to the girls they saved. “We’re big fuckin’ heroes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jesus christ this chapter is dark.  
> hey @ brain i know i watched a documentary on that recently, but CHILL


	10. Echo from the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie meets a very interesting co-worker at his new job.

“You want us to break into Stark Tower.”

 

**Yes.**

 

“The  _ top floor _ of Stark Tower.”

 

**Yes.**

 

“To raid the fridge.”

 

**So?**

 

“Are you  _ insane? _ ”

 

**Nope.**

 

“Then why would you suggest into the  _ Avengers’ Headquarters _ to raid their fridge?”

 

**We don’t like Stark.**

 

“I mean, neither do I, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to break into his place.”, he shook his head when Venom huffed in his head. “We can find some bad guys to eat go instead, how about that?”

Venom purred in his head at the suggestion. It  _ had _ been a while since they last had a bad guy to eat.

“It’s a date then.”, Eddie grinned with that remark, wholly enjoying the warm blossoming feeling Venom caused in his chest.

 

**The best kind of date.**

 

Eddie shook his head as he entered the building of the New York Times - the newspaper that had decided to re-hire him after exposing Carlton Drake and what he was doing. He even got a fancy deskspace on one of the upper floors.   
He had just gotten to his deskspace, was just a mere few meters away from it when he bumped into someone, causing them to drop the paper they had been carrying.

 

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry!”, the person he had bumped into said, rushing to pick their papers up. The first thing Eddie noticed the purple jacket they wore, an interesting black pattern on it, and the matching dyed purple hair.  _ Fancy. _   
“No, no, it’s fine, I should’ve watched where I was going.”, he replied, helping them pick the papers up again - which he noticed to be drafts of different news articles.   
“Thanks.”, they said, pushing their glasses back up their nose as they took the stack of papers Eddie had picked up. “Wait a second, I recognize you. Eddie Brock, right?”   
“Yup, but unfortunately your face isn’t quite as recognizable as mine. You are…?”   
“Oh, right! I’m Val, nice to meet you. I would’ve probably met you sooner, but I’ve been off the past week because I was ill.”, they scrunched their nose a little, scratching the side of their neck.   
“Ooh, sounds nasty.”   
“Yeah, it was. Well, I’m better now, that’s got to count for something, right? That, and I’m playing mailman again. Anyways, I’ll see you later!”, they said, rushing on to where they were going in the first place.

 

“They seemed pleasant.”, he mused as he finally got to sit down, surprised that Venom didn’t give any sarky commentary. “You’re quiet, V, what’s up?”

 

**Something off about them.**

 

“Y’think?”, he raised an eyebrow, logging into his computer. “They seemed perfectly civil, if a bit on the nervous side.”

 

And that was how his first meeting with Val went - and over the week they actually became pretty good friends. Val was from Vienna, went to university in England, and came to New York for the American Dream.   
Venom continued to be an ass about it though, continuously trying to tell Eddie that there was something  _ off _ about Val, but it fell on mostly deaf ears with Eddie. However, he figured out what he meant when he went with Val to check out a source for the article they were writing. It was in a shady neighborhood, and they had asked him to come along just for that extra bit of security, and he couldn’t really say no.

 

“How did you manage to get that info out of the councillor? When I had my interview with him he refused to comment on almost all of my questions.”, Val asked, tugging their signature purple jacket closer against the cold fall winds.

“I can be persuasive.”, Eddie shrugged, his own hands in his jacket pocket, black congealing within the pocket to hold Eddie’s hands, which brought a small smile to his face whenever they squeezed his hands.

“You make it sound like you tortured him.”, they said with a laugh, shaking their head.

“Don’t give me away.”, he gave their arm a nudge with his elbow, grinning as well now.

Val shook their head, leading them to some old buildings, the streets abandoned and silent save for the dietant rush of New York traffic. “Here, my source said she’d meet us here.”

 

However, as they went into the building they were meant to meet, they were greeted by a large man - torn denim jacket, dirty shirt, tattoos decorating his arms.

“... You’re not my contact.”, they gulped, noticing the body they recognized as their source on the floor behind them. “Oh no. This is bad.”

 

**This is a set-up.**

 

“You should’ve kept your nose out of our business.”, the man growled, pulling a rifle out from behind the door frame, aiming it at them.

Before he could fire, Venom was already out, growling as they ripped the rifle away from the man, the other hand gripping into his torso as he bit his head off. When they turned back to Val, they were just staring at Venom, eyes wide and jaw hanging open.

 

**Surprise.**

 

As Venom began to recede back into Eddie, Val reached out, motioning for him to stop. “No, no, don’t go back in yet! I uh.. I may have someone you might want to meet.”

Those words were enough for Venom to stay out, squinting at Val as they backed away, only for their eyes to widen as their ever-so-fancy jacket expanded.

 

_ Symbiote. _

 

That was the thought Eddie and Venom had as Val was encompassed in the same goopy material Venom was made of, but the colour was a deep purple with streaks of black.

They were nowhere near as big or bulky as Venom - this new symbiote was barely any taller than Val, and they were just a mere 5’4”.

 

**Venom, how nice to see you again. I see you found yourself a host.**

 

**Echo. Did you catch a ride in me, you damn parasite?**

 

**Now, whatever did I do to deserve** **_that_ ** **?**

 

Venom growled, hands clenched into fists.

 

**Relax, I hitched a ride on Riot. Nice work with him, by the way.**

 

**Don’t get familiar.**

 

The two symbiotes retracted into their hosts again.

“So uh… yeah. Surprise?”, Val broke the silence first, evidently a touch flustered.

“What did uh..”

“Echo?”

“Yeah, Echo. What did Echo mean when it said it ‘hitched a ride’ on Riot.”

 

**Echo is a damn parasite.**

 

Venom hissed from where it manifested over Eddie’s shoulder, causing Eddie to raise an eyebrow. “You complain when I call you that, but this is fine?”

“Well, Echo  _ is _ a bit of a special case.”, Val cut in, tugging at the jacket that Eddie knew was the symbiote now. “Uh.. The best way I can explain it is that they’re a sub-species of symbiote that can temporarily hide away in others of its kind. They’re also not as, well,  _ obvious  _ as other symbiotes, but also not as strong.”, Val was fidgeting where they stood, glancing back and forth between Eddie and Venom. “I can try and stay out of your way, if it helps?”

“When Venom is out, that might be wise. They don’t seem to like each other. But I’m still good to hang out at work.”

“That’s great. Speaking of work, I can’t believe this asshole killed my source.”, they gave the headless corpse a defiant kick, crossing their arms. “This is going to be a  _ lot _ of paperwork.”

“It’s easier when you make a template.”

“Don’t smartass me.”

“Can’t promise anything.”

 

**You’re both losers.**

 

Sure enough, Val and Eddie stayed friends within the office, spending the occasional lunch at a coffee shop together, but they made sure not to run into each other during ‘symbiote outings’ to avoid their symbiotes getting into an argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A self-insert? In MY drabbles? It's more likely than you think!  
> (fight me)
> 
> Also, sorry today's chapter is so late, I've been sleeping all day because of a migraine ;v;


	11. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie's definition of a 'Date Night' shifted ever since Venom came into his life.

When he was with Anne date nights involved fancy dinners, long walks by the river, and then making a mess of their bedsheets. But now that he was with Venom, date nights had a bit of a different definition.

 

He had figured out how to keep Venom from reading his thoughts, which he used to his full advantage at the moment.

 

**We do not like surprises.**

 

“I know, love, but trust me, this is a good sort of surprise.”, he said as he hopped off his motorcycle, climbing up the fire exit ladder of the nearby storehouse, leaning over the edge to peer down.

Below there were people carrying crates and boxes, armed men standing guard.

“Smugglers. They sell military-grade weapons, drugs, you name it they probably sold it at some point.”, he said, feeling Venom ripple beneath his skin.

 

**You usually call the police for big things like this.**

 

“True, but this  _ is _ a date night.”

 

**The very best kind of date night.**

 

He felt safe when Venom enveloped him, where Eddie and his symbiote became  _ Venom _ , and it felt like they could take on the world.

They took their time ripping through the guards and smugglers, teeth and claws stained red from blood and gore. They were on top of the world together, adrenaline coursing through them as they killed the last of the smugglers.

 

**You take such good care of us, Eddie.**

 

Venom was positively purring as they returned into Eddie’s body, coiling and curling around Eddie’s stomach happily.

“I do what I can.”, Eddie mused, patting his stomach, by now largely used to the copper-y aftertaste of blood left in his mouth. “Let’s go to the store, then we can go home.”, he said, wholly enjoying the content purrs emanating from the symbiote still coiled around his stomach.

 

The ride wasn’t long, greeting the store-owner as he bee-lined it to the snack section, unable to deny Venom as its black tendrils reached out for certain snacks that they wanted.

He picked up a few other things for himself, barely able to hear what the cashier said over Venom’s constant purring.

 

When they got home, he peeled off most of his clothing, plopping down on their bed, one hand resting on the mattress and the other one resting on his chest, feeling Venom congeal beneath his hand and nuzzle up into it.

 

**Love you, Eddie.**

 

“Love you too, V.”, he replied,hand making a little hollow space between his palm and chest. “Comfortable?”

 

**Very.**

 

Eddie hummed softly, smiling as Venom extended small tendrils from the congealed mass on his chest to intertwine with his fingers.

 

Their date nights aren’t always eating smuggling rings though, sometimes it’s the simpler things that make for a good date night.

 

Eddie was lounging on the couch, a plate of tater tots next to him that Venom was devouring at the moment, a jar of peanut butter in his lap, scooping spoonfuls into his mouth.

This got Venom’s attention, head moving to hover by his shoulder.

 

**Eddie. Eddie, what is that?**

 

“Peanut butter. You want some?”, he offered the spoon to the symbiote, who took the hearty amount of peanut butter on the spoon. At first Venom seemed to be enjoying themselves, but soon he began grumbling and growling, the image presented distinctly reminding Eddie of a dog with peanut butter stuck on the roof of its mouth.

 

**raaaaaAAAAAA** **_EDDIE_ **

 

When Venom began screeching, Eddie burst out in full-bodied laughter, shoulders shaking and clutching his stomach as Venom dramatically dropped its head into his lap.   
“That bad?”, he managed to eventually get out in-between bouts of laughter and giggling, one hand moving to brush his fingers in the space between Venom’s eyes.

 

**Do not give us this snack ever again.**

 

“Of course. Sorry, love.”, he said, chuckling softly as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Venom’s teeth, fingers brushing gentle circular motions on Venom’s head. “We still have those chocolate-covered mini cookies. You want those instead?”

 

**Yesssss**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> both dogs and & symbiotes greatest mouth enemy: peanut butter


	12. It's a Human Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie gets sick, and Venom doesn't like it.

He began coughing the evening before - a tingling sensation at the back of his throat that alarmed the hell out of Venom, who immediately tried to figure out how to fix it.

“Relax, V. It’s probably nothing.”, he tried to soothe the fussing symbiote, patting the center of his chest where the symbiote located itself for the most part.

 

**We want to fix this.**

 

Eddie sighed softly as he finally went to bed, stretching as he pulled the blanket over them. “Really, it’s probably nothing.”, but he had no idea how wrong he was.

 

When his alarm rang, the noise rattled his brain, pain shooting through his head as his fist slammed down on the alarm clock, shattering it to pieces as Venom reacted to the pain piercing through them.

Eddie groaned as he squinted into his dark room, blinds still pulled over the window.  _ Great. A migraine. _

He rolled his head to the side, closing his eyes again.

 

**You are hurt.**

 

“Shh.”

 

**Do not** **_shush_ ** **us.**

 

“ _ Shh. _ ”, he swatted at empty air before clutching his head, turning onto his side in an attempt to alleviate the pain - though he did not have any real success.

Thankfully Venom got the hint and quietened down, instead carefully rummaging through all the nerves aflame in Eddie’s head to search for the source of the pain. Venom frowned upon failing to find a specific source for the pain, tempted to just turn all of those pain receptors off.

 

“Don’t. I just gotta sleep through it.”, Eddie grumbled, aware of what Venom was about to do. “Can you get me some painkillers though?”, he squinted over to the medical cabinet in the bathroom, smiling when he felt Venom silently extend his way over there, returning with two tablets. “Thanks, love.”, he mumbled, swallowing the tablets dry since he couldn’t really be bothered trying to reach any source of water, grumbling softly as Venom helped the tablets go down.

 

It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep again, occasionally briefly waking to turn to either side or on to his back. Occasionally he’d wake up fully, only to briefly glance at his phone for the time, grumble, and go back to sleep.

It continued like this all day, and Venom  _ hated _ not being able to help Eddie, coiling around and through his brain, desperately trying to find the ‘off’ switch for all this pain Eddie was suffering.

 

Eddie groaned as he woke up yet again, squinting at the time on his phone. 2pm. Fuck, he was thirsty.

He forced himself out of bed, but once he had taken less than five steps, his vision began to darken, fuzzing over as he swayed in place.

 

**Got you.**

 

Venom extended several tendrils from Eddie’s body, sticking to the walls of the apartment, keeping Eddie from falling out and guiding him towards the sink for some water, handing him a full glass.

“Thanks, V.”, Eddie replied, gently patting the closest tendril before drinking the glass, stumbling back to bed and promptly passing out again.

 

It was almost 7pm by the time Eddie woke up without pain, reaching one hand up to press it against his forehead and sighing in relief when there was no pulse of pain.

“Told you I just had to sleep through it.”, he said, knowing Venom was listening.

 

**You need food.**

 

“I know, love.”, Eddie mumbled, glancing down when he felt a sudden warm pressure on his chest, chuckling when he saw a plate of tater tots. “Aw, how sweet.”, he sat up, careful not to spill the tater tots Venom had so lovingly prepared, setting the plate down in his lap instead.

He coughed a few more times, groaning as he rubbed along his throat just beneath his chin, sighing when he realized he now had a  _ very _ sore throat. He could already hear Anne telling him to get checked out by a doctor.

 

**No MRI’s.**

 

“We’re not getting an MRI, V. We’re probably just gonna get something against the sore throat. Tomorrow,  _ after _ we had these tater tots though.”, he said, popping one into his mouth, ignoring the way his throat ached at every movement of his jaw.

 

Venom was anxiously coiled around his lungs as Eddie kept coughing as they sat in the hospital waiting room he next day. He wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for Anne calling and immediately telling him to go to the doctor when she heard him coughing his lungs out.

 

“Eddie, hey! Come on, let’s get you checked out.”, Dan greeted him, shaking his hand as he lead him to the examination room. Venom bristled beneath his skin, entirely unhappy with the situation, congealing against Eddie’s skin beneath his hoodie. “Take a seat, and tell me what’s wrong.”, Dan gestured to the examination chair, sitting down on a chair opposite of it.

“Um.. We-  _ I _ had a migraine yesterday, and now my throat hurts.”, he paused to cough into the sleeve of his hoodie a few times. “And also that.”

“Hm… You don’t usually have migraines, right?”

“No, not really.”

“Alright.. Tell me more, any other symptoms with the migraine?”

“Couldn’t look at light, noise rattled my brain - more than usual at any rate - and when I got up it felt like I was gonna throw up.”

“Any vision distortions?”

“Things got real fuzzy when I got up to get something to drink, if that counts.”

“Hm.. Alright, let’s take your blood pressure.”, Dan said as he got up, getting out the blood pressure meeting, waiting for Eddie to roll up the sleeve of his hoodie, wrapping the band of the blood pressure meter around his biceps and letting that do its job as he wrote down the migraine Symptoms Eddie had just described to him, then writing down his blood pressure when the meter stopped squeezing.

 

**Don’t like this.**

 

Venom made sure that Eddie knew it was not happy with this situation - it was poked and prodded back in Life Foundation, and now he was poked and prodded in a hospital. Eddie tried to keep Venom calm without making it too obvious, brushing his thumb in soothing circular motions over the back of his other hand.

 

“Mouth open and tongue out, please.”, Dan’s words snapped Eddie out of his little Eddie-and-Venom bubble, blinking at the doctor now holding a popsicle stick.

“Huh?”

“I need to check the back of your throat.”

“Oh, right…”, he always hated the feeling of his tongue being forced down with a popsicle stick, ever since he was little he hated it, but thankfully it didn’t take longer than a few second.

“All right, it looks pretty red back there, but there’s no pus. So, it’s most likely something viral - it’s cold season, so upper respiratory infections are pretty common this time of year.”, Dan typed out something on a computer screen - though Eddie couldn’t quite see what. Probably something doctor-y. “As it goes with upper respiratory infections, you just need to let it run its course. The sore throat should only last up to about a week, and usually peaks around day 4. The cough… that can last up to three weeks.”, Dan ripped a piece of paper out of a small notebook at his desk, writing something down and handing it to Eddie. “Pick this up at the pharmacy.”

“Difflam spray?”

“Yes, it’s an anesthetic, it’ll numb the back of your throat and make eating easier. It’s cheaper to buy over the counter than with a prescription. You can also pick up some paracetamol and ibuprofen, but only take the latter with a meal.”

“Thanks, Dan.”

“No problem. Hope you’ll feel better sooner rather than later.”, he gave Eddie a pat on the back before letting him go, sending him off in the direction of the pharmacy.

 

Once back in his apartment, Eddie immediately popped a paracetamol down the hatch with some water as he looked at the packaging of the difflam spray.

 

**We could make our throat stop hurting without any of that, Eddie.**

 

“I know. But it’s a human thing, wanting to kick an illness’ ass without the interference of their alien lover.” Evidently referring to Venom as his ‘alien lover’ seemed to placate him for now, if the low purring from within Eddie’s chest was anything to go by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats up, if i get to suffer from an upper respiratory infection then so does eddie
> 
> (also whats up, dis boi has an interview for a part-time job tomorrow, so tomorrow's chapter might be a bit late in being posted)


	13. Nap time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie hates heights, and to an extend flying. Venom helps.
> 
> This is the next installment of the spider-next-door/avengers AU.

Eddie hated heights, and to an extend flying. So, when he was asked to join the Avengers on a mission he was very hesitant when he found out that they would be taking the hovercraft. Hell, the only reason he agreed to come was because he was told he was going to be compensated for his time (which translated to ‘lots of chocolate’ for Venom).

 

He took paid leave from his day-job for the few days it would take for this mission (flying there, doing the mission, flying back, and recovering from jetlag) - a Hydra cell hiding out in Alaska. (Who the hell even names their group ‘Hydra’?)

 

**Nazis do.**

 

Eddie grumbled as he looked at the large engines on the hovercraft, frowning. He looked over to Bruce, hoping he knew how sensitive they were to sound. “How many hertz do these things make noise-wise? Anything over 6000 can be pretty bad for us.”

“Well, in the original design it made well over 6000 hertz, but we modified it so that only a fraction of that noise penetrates into the main body of the hovercraft. So, both of you should be fine.”

“Oh, good.”, still it did little to soothe him, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie as he entered the main hold area, immediately heading for the most secure looking corner and hunkering down there. “Have I mentioned I  _ hate _ heights?”

“Just don’t look out the front, and you’ll be fine, Mr. Brock.”, the ever-annoying voice of Tony Stark rang over to them from the front of the craft where the controls were, and Eddie’s mood - and by extension Venom’s - only sank further. “Oh, since we’re already talking, may I introduce to you, our ‘Captain America’ Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, and Clint Barton.”, he gestured to the three entering the hovercraft.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Steve Rogers.”, Steve approached him, a smile on his face as he shook Eddie’s hand - something that again caused Venom’s possessive streak to flare up.

“Eddie Brock.”, he gave a nod to the three avengers Tony had introduced him to.

“The investigative reporter?”, Natasha asked, a little surprised that of all the people to come on an Avenger mission an investigstive reporter was it. “I heard what had happened at Life Foundation.”

“Yeah, just about everyone has.”, he scratched the bridge of his nose, glancing outside. If they darted now, they wouldn’t have to fly.

 

**Pussy.**

 

He wrinkled his nose at Venom’s jab, mentally telling the symbiote to  _ piss off _ and thus completely missing Steve’s next words.

“Mr. Brock?”

“Huh? Sorry, I just.. really don’t like flying.”, he said. It wasn’t even a lie, he really  _ did _ hate flying, but that wasn’t the reason he had stopped listening.

“Ah, of course, it’s understandable. The flight shouldn’t be too long though.”, Steve gave him a pat on the shoulder, moving to sit down in one of the nearby seats.

 

They took off soon after, and Eddie settled further into his little corner, pointedly refusing to look to the front of the craft where he would have a  _ very _ clear view of the earth below. Nope, definitely not looking that direction.

“Wake me up when we’re landing.”, he said before pulling the hood of his hoodie over his head, closing his eyes as he hugged his knees, resting his head against the wall behind him.

 

Eddie was a quiet sleeper, he usually didn’t move around too much, but the occasional bout of turbulence didn’t exactly make his sleep easy, and Venom figured they could do something about that.

Venom congealed out of Eddie’s skin, forming its massive upper body starting with its head, followed by its thick neck, and muscular arms and torso. Venom rumbled deep in their chest, eyes thin slits of pearly white as Eddie shifted against their torso, curling closer against them.

 

Venom’s appearance startled the rest of the team, those that were sitting jumped to their feet and those already on their feet jumped a little.   
“What the  _ fuck _ \--”, Natasha had immediately pulled out a gun, pointing it at Venom, but hesitant to fire within the confines of the hovercraft, and the fact that Venom didn’t seem to want to attack any of them, nor harm Eddie.

“It didn’t do that last time.”, Bruce gulped, still a little freaked out by the sheer limitless capabilities of what the symbiote was able to do when with Eddie.

 

**Let Eddie sleep.**

 

Venom was more of a low rumble than really a voice, but it was still audible enough to be understandable, one of Venom’s massive clawed hands moving up to gently brush through Eddie’s hair, causing him to sigh softly in his sleep, furrowed eyebrows relaxing beneath the symbiote’s touch.

The others were still on edge, though at the very least the guns and other weapons were put away for now. Venom stayed out for the rest of the flight, letting Eddie sleep content and safe against him, and chased away any nightmare that would try to disturb eddie’s sleep.

 

When they began to approach their landing site Venom seeped back into its host’s skin, and nudging Eddie into waking up, which he did. Eddie yawned, stretching as he rubbed at his eyes, blinking a few times. “We here?”   
“Just about, we need to land a little ways away to avoid catching Hydra’s attention. There will be some resistance as we move closer, but if we’re quiet we can get in close to their base without them noticing.”, Steve said as he adjusted his shield on its holster.

“Venom and I aren’t exactly subtle.”

 

**We can if we want to be.**

 

“Oh, we know. That’s why you’ll be coming with Tony, Bruce, and I while Natasha and Clint flank them. We’ll be the distraction.”

“... Great. By the way, is there anyone we should watch out for, or…? Because knowing Venom, there will be a  _ lot _ of heads bitten off.”

“Well, this is more or less a training camp for Hydra’s ground forces, so it’ll be mostly that, but we want the commander in charge of the camp. He’ll be in the center of the camp - just watch for a man with a burn scar covering about half his face.”

“We’ll keep it in mind.”

 

**Yesssss. So many snacks, and this time more than enough time to savour them.**

 

“Venom sounds excited.”, Eddie said, still pointedly refusing to look to the front of the hovercraft, instead keeping his eyes glued to the hangar door.

 

And sure enough, Venom had the time of their life ripping through and biting chunks off Hydra soldiers, and by the time they were back in their apartment they were both filled to the brim, to the point that if Eddie pushed at his stomach he could feel the coppery taste of blood fill his mouth. “You know, this stuff tastes better going down than it does going up.”, he said as he flopped down on his bed, watching Venom form on his stomach as a content little blob of gooey darkness.

 

**We are happy.**

 

“Sure are, buddy. Sure are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya boi did his first job interview, and it was nowhere near as daunting as i thought. let's hope i get this job //sweats  
> (also killing/eating nazis is Gay Culture)


	14. Snow Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Venom's first snow day, and Eddie lets him in on the more fun snow day traditions humans have.

Global warming was a bitch, that’s one thing that Eddie had learned over the years of reporting - and just generally being a citizen of the shithole that was Planet Earth. With it came unbearable summer heats, and ridiculous freezing winters, and storms that leave destruction in their wake.

 

Right now it was that time of year where there were ridiculous freezing winters, and it announced itself with a thick heavy blanket of snow that made any form of transport that wasn’t wading through the snow yourself impossible.

So right now New York, the city that never sleeps, was pretty well asleep. Sure, everyone still went about their business, trying to get to work, but there were a lot fewer cars and buses about.

 

Eddie got a call not to come into the office - snow day is what they said, which only made him collapse back into bed and cocoon himself into a blanket burrito.

Venom, however, had other ideas. The symbiote stretched itself over to the window, pushing aside blinds and curtains, absolutely  _ curious _ about all the white powdery stuff outside on the windowsill and streets below.

 

**Eddie.**

 

Eddie didn’t reply, only buried his face further into his blanket burrito.

 

**Eddie what’s all that outside?**

 

He only grumbled again, which made the Symbiote huff, and with one fell swoop it unravelled the blanket burrito Eddie was trying to become one with at the moment.

Eddie yelped as he landed on the ground with a thud, glaring at Venom. “What the  _ hell--? _ ”

 

**Don’t ignore us. What’s all that outside?**

 

Venom hoisted Eddie back to his feet, pulling him to the window not much unlike an excited child would.

Except this was no child, this was a giant alien goop monster that eats people. And it was hyped over snow.  _ Fuck, that’s adorable. _

 

“That’s snow, V. It falls during the winter months - lots of fun for families, not so much for anyone trying to get to work.”, he said as he opened the window, shivering against the cold before Venom warmed him, for which he gave the symbiote an appreciative pat.

Venom didn’t say anything at first, instead closely inspecting the snow on the windowsill, tilting its head back and forth (Eddie briefly thought of a puppy on its first snow day) before sticking its tongue out, tasting the snow, recoiling a bit at the coldness.

 

**_Cold!!_ **

 

“Yeah, it’s frozen water. It has a tendency to be really cold. It can be fun though if you have enough layers on.”, he mused, briefly tempted to just stick his hands in the snow for that nice  _ crunch _ sound of freshly fallen snow.

Then he decided  _ fuck it _ , and stuck his hands in there.

Sure enough, there was a supremely satisfying  _ crunch _ that brought a smile to Eddie’s face, even as Venom stared him down in confusion and his hands began to sting from the cold.

He removed his hands, wiping away the wetness of molten snow, trying to warm his hands up, looking up just in time to see Venom dunk its entire face into the snow, causing Eddie to start laughing so hard his knees threatened to give out from under him.

 

“ _ Venom, holy shit--! _ ”

 

**Now they match.**

 

Venom gestured to the blobby imprint of his face next to Eddie’s hands, which did not help Eddie’s giggling.

He clutched his stomach as he did his best not to double-over laughing, tears of laughter forming in his eyes. “You are such a doofus.”, he managed to get out in-between more giggles.

Venom ignored the jab, by now able to tell when a jab was meant to be in affection rather than mal contempt. Instead, he was preening in the fact that he made Eddie laugh so hard, delighted in the way that Eddie’s entire being lit up when he grinned, and made it his personal goal to make him laugh as often as possible.

 

**Eddie we should go outside.**

 

_ That _ suggestion had Eddie less enthused. “Love, there is absolutely no way we’re going out.”

 

**We can keep us warm.**

 

Eddie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I know, I know. I just want to avoid getting pelted by snowballs.”

 

**Snowballs?**

 

“A kid’s game. Everyone makes as many balls out of snow as possible and throws them at each other. Rules vary from each group of kids to the next.”

Eddie could feel Venom ripple beneath his skin, and that usually meant he had a mischievous idea. “Venom, no, we’re not having a snowball fight.” Venom pouted at that. “ _ But _ , we can make a snowman. That’s always fun.”

 

**Oh?**

 

“It’s.. you know what, I’ll just show you.”, he made sure that Venom couldn’t rifle through his memories as he got ready to go out, wrapping himself up in plenty of layers with Venom forming a black goopy scarf around his neck that would occasionally sneak a tendril up to Eddie’s cheek to give him a kiss. He made sure to stuff a carrot into his pocket and pick up a few pebbles as he walked, which only seemed to confuse Venom more, badgering him with questions as they walked.   
He waved to Peter as the teen waved to him, in the middle of a snowball fight out in front of the apartment building - it seemed that schools had closed for the day as well, which they seemed to be taking advantage of.

 

The walk to a more quiet area didn’t take long, Eddie knew the back streets pretty well by now, so he soon found a large enough area that he had more than enough snow but they still wouldn’t be interrupted. “Alright, let’s start.”

Eddie crouched down, balling up a bit of snow in his hand, ignoring the sting of cold through his flimsy gloves, knowing Venom would prevent them from getting frostbite. Frostbite  _ sucks _ . From there, he rolled out the ball and made it become bigger and bigger until it reached his upper thigh. Venom seemed to get the picture, tendrils more than happily helping him along with pushing the next two balls of snow around, carefully lifting them atop the first one and securing it with more snow.

“Get some branches from the tree there, V. I’ll decorate the rest.”, he felt Venom propel two tendrils to the nearby tree, returning with a few different sizes of branch, but there were two that definitely made for nice arms. The rest of the twigs he just piled on the head to look like hair, having used the pebbles he had picked up on their journey to give the snowman two eyes and four buttons, and a carrot nose. “And that’s a snowman.”, he said as he stepped back, moving his arms in a presenting motion, pretty proud of his handiwork actually. Venom seemed to pick up on it.

 

**This is what you do when it snows?**

 

“Amongst other things. Speaking of.”, he gestured to the sky, where a few small snowflakes began falling. “One thing I always did as a kid was try and catch a snowflake on my tongue.”

 

**Aren’t they just water though?**

 

“Not the point. Let me have this.”, he said as he looked up, sticking his tongue out. As confused as Venom was about all these snow traditions, it mirrored Eddie. Venom’s head sprouting out of the scars it was still forming around Eddie’s neck, looking up and sticking its tongue out trying to catch snowflakes as well, spluttering when it actually did and was once again surprised by the coldness of it.

Eddie laughed softly, shaking his head. “C’mon, if this is gonna be another big snowstorm, I want to be inside when it hits. Besides, I can make us hot chocolate with marshmallows, since you made us get some the other day.”

 

**Yessssss, hot chocolate, lots of it.**

 

Venom rippled against his skin around his neck, a clear marker he was more than happy with the prospect of hot chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is some Gay Shit & I'm thriving
> 
> Also ya boi lost his dang voice from coughing so much. Damn you, upper respiratory infection!!!


	15. We are Venom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlton Drake apparently had some friends interested in his research. Eddie and Venom find out the hard way.

It had been a normal day for them - a productive day at work, followed up by a power nap in their apartment, a hearty meal of instant ramen (spiced up with egg and some random spices he had in his cabinets), and then a bit of walking around town for some bad guys to eat.

 

Eddie rounded the corner when there was suddenly a shrill sound that made the symbiote in his veins freeze and lock up in pain, making it hard to move. There was someone here with them, they could tell, but _where--?!_

 

**EDDIE!!**

 

Venom’s shriek of his name was the last he heard before he was knocked over the head with something hard and heavy, knocking him out cold into the freshly fallen snow.

 

When he woke up the lights overhead were blinding, groaning as he turned, his senses returning to him one by one, and finally became aware of Venom’s worried mantra.

 

**Eddie, Eddie, our Eddie, wake up, please, wake up, wake up, please, pleasewakeupcantloseyoupleaseeddie**

 

“I’m here, V. We’re still here.”, he reassured the symbiote, pressing a hand to his chest as he exhaled, finally looking around the room he had been placed in. It was a blank white room, bright white light coming from lamps above them, and a thick heavy metal door on the wall opposite them, and next to that a one-way viewing window.

“This is bad.”, he mumbled, realizing he had been passed out on the ground for god knows how long.

 

**No shit. You didn’t wake up for so long. We thought you never would.**

 

“I’d never leave you. They must’ve hit me _hard_ for me to pass out that long.”, he rubbed the back of his head where he remembered being hit, groaning slightly at the memory.

 

**We fixed us.**

 

“Thanks, V.”, and as soon as he said that, the door opened, and armed soldiers began filing into the room, surrounding them and pointing their rifles at them.

The last person to enter was a man in what looked like his 50’s, wearing a lab coat and a name badge saying ‘Dr. Dullahan’. _Huh._

“Who are you?”, Eddie was straight to the point, glancing around suspiciously before glaring at the doctor again.

“An interested party who was quite upset with you destroying Carlton Drake’s research. I was hoping you’d cooperate and help us.”, his voice was calm, but Eddie could smell the crooked bullshit from a mile away, and he absolutely _hated_ that.

“Go to hell. Carlton Drake killed innocent people in those experiments, there’s no way I’m ‘helping’.”, he said as he got up, prepared to go Venom to get out.

The man sighed, shaking his head. “I was afraid you’d say that. Restrain them, I want that Symbiote out for testing.”, with that the doctor left, followed by a few of the soldiers, though the majority of them stayed in the room.

“Get  _off_ of us--!”, Eddie struggled when they gripped him, and Venom was in the middle of coming out and shredding these soldiers apart when a shrill shriek rang through the room, causing both host and symbiote to scream in pain, clutching their head.

 

Venom rickochet out of him and against the wall, immediately surrounded by soldiers keeping it away from Eddie. Anytime it tried to slither past, the noise would return, and the little blob that was the Venom Symbiote would _bubble_ with pain.

Eddie was restrained behind the ones encircling the Symbiote, gasping for breath as that void that Venom had filled inside him encompassed him, knocking the breath out of him and causing him to shake with shock. His vision was blurry and out-of-focus, no noise reaching his ears save for his own ragged breathing.

 

 _He had to get back to Venom, his Venom, had to get him back, they had to be one again, his symbiote could_ **_die_ ** _like this--_

 

When people speak of hysterical strength, the image of someone lifting a car to escape from under it, or perhaps fighting off a bear to keep others safe comes to mind. No one really knows how it happens, but it comes in life-or-death situations, when someone’s life is in danger and the only way to save it was through impossible feats.

Eddie figured this is what must have happened when he wrenched himself free of his restraints and barrelled through the soldiers like they were paper mache figurines. He flung himself over the Symbiote, lifting it to his chest protectively, a fire in his eyes and a snarl on his lips.

 

We are _Venom. And he is_ **_MINE._ **

 

Black veins creeped on to his skin, a clearly non-human growl coming to his voice, and with his last word it turned into a thunderous roar as Venom enveloped him, and they were _one_ once again. They knew they would try to separate them again, and they were determined to not even let them try - they ripped through them all in an enraged frenzy.

They only calmed again when the room was littered with viscera, blood, and gore. They moved to the door, snarling as they ripped it off its hinges, into the open glass-walled corridors of a lab.

 

_The smell of antiseptic and rotten flesh, locked doors to testing rooms where the subjects were kept, trapped in there with aliens that were as unfamiliar with humans as humans were with them. Incompatible hosts, didn’t fit right, couldn’t form symbiosis. Then Eddie was there, a perfect host, a perfect fit, perfect symbiosis._

 

“We gotta get home.”, Eddie thought through their bond, milky-white eyes of the symbiote looking around for an exit.

**We can agree on that. But first, snack time.**

 

Venom licked their chops, grinning as they sensed the doctor that had caused them to be seperated surrounded by his guards, smashing through the thick glass panes towards them with abandon, ignoring the other scientists who jumped out of their way in a panic.

They found him soon enough, snarling as they cut through his guards like water, growing as they crushed the desk where the doctor was reaching for a small device - likely another shrill noise-maker that would force them to separate them. They refused to let that happen, refused to be apart.

 

 **You tore us apart.** **_We_ ** **are Venom, and we will** **_not_ ** **be separated again.**

 

They didn’t let him reply, biting his head off with a blood curdling _crunch_ of bone and brain and muscle. They dropped the now headless body, growling as they heaved in simmering rage. He hadn’t nearly suffered enough for what he did to them, but they had more pressing issues. They had to get out.

Eddie briefly thought  _Now his surname is really ironic._

 

It didn’t take them long, tearing through the lab until they finally got out, looking around in confusion. _Where the hell were they?_

 

**We need up.**

 

They climbed the highest tree that could hold them, squinting as they looked around, sighing when they spotted the skyline of their home in the distance.

 

**Found you.**

 

When they got back into the city they bee-lined it for their apartment, Venom sinking back into Eddie’s body, Eddie shedding his jacket and shoes as he collapsed into bed, curling up into himself.

 

“They hurt you.”, he whispered, hugging the black mass congealing out of his chest close against him, still trembling from the adrenaline rush. The memory of the all-consuming _emptiness_ left by the symbiote’s absence was still shaking him, made him cling to the symbiote like if he let go he might dissipate into nothingness and he would be alone again.

 

 **They hurt** **_us._ **

 

“Mostly you. They _separated_ us.”, the experience was so much more harrowing this time around. When it first happened in the hospital, they weren’t _one_ yet. The time on the rocket wasn’t as bad either, they were just freshly bonded. But this time? It was bone-chilling, to have the comforting presence always there ripped away forcefully and _tortured_ to be kept away from him was something he _never_ wanted to repeat again.

 

**Won’t happen ever again, Eddie. We are Venom. We are one.**

 

“I’ll hold you to that, love. Let’s just… stay like this. Please?”, he felt Venom rumble deep in his bones, the black mass nuzzling against his chest and neck, black tendrils gently wrapping around his limbs in a full-bodied hug, pressing gentle and loving kisses against his scruffy skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> funfact; Hysterical Strength is a real thing, and someone did, in fact, fight off a polar bear to save four kids until a local hunter shot it. it's interesting stuff.


	16. One Host to Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie hasn't had any bad guys to eat in a while, but a friend from work is willing to help him out.

“Eddie, you look like shit.”, Val said as they leaned against Eddie’s desk within their office floor of the New York Times. 

“Nothing new there.”, Eddie grumbled, rubbing at his eyes, thick bags under his eyes.

“Yeah, but I mean more than usual, my guy.”, they shook their head, nudging Eddie’s takeaway coffee closer towards him. “Trouble in paradise?”

“What’s  _ that _ supposed to mean?”, he actually looked at them now, eyebrows furrowing slightly.

“You feeding your other well?”

He sighed at that, taking a big swig of the hot coffee in front of him, ignoring the burn to his mouth, tongue, and throat. “It’s been a while. Negative attention and such, you know?”

“Riiight, the ‘Headless Murderer’. Nice nickname, by the way. I hear the police is at high alert in Queens right now.”

“Wasn’t it you that wrote that article in the first place?”

“I’m quite proud of my handiwork, really. It’s poetic.”

“Not the word I’d use. A stupid joke, maybe.”

“Aw, and here I thought we were friends.”, Val was grinning at him now, clearly taking the tired banter well. Sleepy Eddie could be a bit of a dickhead.

“You know I’m only kidding.”, he waved them off, taking another big swig of hot coffee.

“Yeah, I know. See ya, buddy.”, they patted Eddie’s shoulders, returning to their own desk as their work day started. From there, Eddie’s workday began a bit of a blur.

 

**Hungry.**

 

He wasn’t sure if he blacked out, fell asleep, or something else because the next thing he knew was that Val was in front of him, patting his cheeks to get his attention.

“Hey, Eddie? Eddie. Eddie, c’mon, look at me.”, they accentuated their words with more insistent pats against his cheeks, only stopping when he moved his hands to swat theirs away. “There you are. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three? What.. Why are we in a toilet stall?”, he looked around in confusion, blinking several times. “I was sitting at my desk… Venom?”

“Eddie, focus. You wandered into the break room and ate an entire pack of raw chicken. I managed to keep anyone else from walking in, but it was a close one. You need something to eat.  _ Both _ of you.”

“We’re fine.”

 

**Hungry.**

 

“No, you’re not. You look like you’re about to pass out, and your buddy isn’t being subtle either. I’m taking both of you out to eat. Stay _ right there _ .”, they poked Eddie in the chest, pinning them there with a look alone before waltzing off to talk to their boss about taking the rest of the day off to take care of Eddie, saying that they’re worried about him getting down with something.

Soon enough, they picked Eddie up again, one arm around his back to help him walk. “You owe me for this, Brock.”, they mused, walking them through some of the back-alleys.

“You don’t have to help us.”, Eddie mumbled, managing to finally find his footing again and largely walk without support.

“Pfft, please. We’re friends. Besides, I got a goopy friend as well, I know what it’s like.”

“Gotta ask though, which one of us is the bait here?”

“Take a wild guess, Eddie. I’m short, fat, and I have a feminine face. Any self-respecting creep knows i’m probably some damsel in distress that couldn’t defend themselves if their life depended on it. Besides, I can defend myself - and I have you two here to help as well.”

 

It really didn’t take long for someone to take the bait, and soon enough Venom was out, eating not just the head but most of the body, licking its chops before returning into Eddie’s body, giving a satisfied rumble as it did so.

 

“Feeling better?”, Val asked, ignoring the gory mess on the ground.

“Yeah.. Yeah, much. Thanks, Val.”, he sighed, his skin no longer as pale as before, eyebrows un-furrowing.

“How long did you go without?”

“Oh man… It’s been two months or so.”

“Oof, that’s a while. Longest I’ve gone without was… what, 3 ½ weeks?”

“Oh man, I’m a Mess.”

“We’re both messes. Come on, let’s get you home before someone finds the puddle of viscera on the ground.”

“Good idea.”

 

**No longer hungry, Eddie.**

 

“Glad to see your vocab increased to more than one word, V.”, Eddie said as they got back to the main streets of New York, the two hosts soon separating to go their own ways back to their homes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just a wee drab  
> couldn't focus on much bc ya boi had to go to the med centre again cause i've been coughing up slime & flem since 4 am this morning


	17. Pick-up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Venom were discussing what to order for dinner when they get a call.

**What do the flames mean?**

 

Venom was hovering next to his shoulder, another tendril extending to point at the small flame symbol next to one of the dishes on the Indian take-away pamphlet they had sitting on their lap right now.

“It’s shows how spicy the dish is. The more flames, the spicier.”

 

**Spicy?**

 

“It burns.”, Venom hissed at that, and he barely managed to snatch the pamphlet away from Venom before the symbiote flung it across the apartment. “Not  _ literally _ , you doofus. It just feels like it because of the spices.”

 

**Don’t like** **_any_ ** **kind of burning.**

 

“This is the good kind of burning, depending on your spice tolerance. And thankfully you found yourself a host with quite a high one. We’re getting curry today.”, he ignored the symbiote’s unhappy grumbling, even though it made a point of giving his pancreas a little nip in retaliation. “Hey, no munching on my organs. We need those. Besides, how about I get us those chocolate pralines you love so much for dessert?”, that cheered the symbiote up some.

But, unfortunately, their banter was cut short when Eddie’s phone rang. He raised an eyebrow when he saw May’s name on his screen, briefly wondering if she locked herself out of the apartment complex.

 

“Hey, May.”

“Eddie, hi! Sorry to call you, but could you please pick Peter up from school? His bike is still being repaired, and I just got a call to cover someone’s shift at work.”, he could hear the traffic in the background of May’s line, but he hadn’t doubted her in the first place - she wasn’t the type of person to lie.

“Sure, why not. He gets out around 5, right?”

“Yes, thank you so much! I owe you one.”

“No problem.”

 

**What’s school?**

 

“I’ll tell you on our way there, how about that?”, he got up, putting the pamphlet on the table for now, smiling when Venom formed a leather jacket around him. “Thanks, V. We look good like this, you know?”

 

**We know. We** **_always_ ** **look good. Now tell us what school is!**

 

“Alright, alright…”, he exited his apartment, smiling as he put his helmet on, talking to his symbiote as he drove through the New York streets to the Highschool Peter attended.

 

**School sounds like shit.**

 

Eddie laughed at that, pulling up out front of the school, eyes scanning the crowd of students coming out of the building for any sight of peter. “Yeah, but I think teaching methods are different now than they were when I was his age.”, he said as he pulled off his helmet, putting his motorcycle’s side kick down, getting off and leaning against his motorcycle with his helmet (plus the extra one he brought for Peter) on the seat.

 

He could tell some students and teachers were eyeing him curiously, wondering what would bring  _ Eddie Brock _ to their school. For the most part he just ignored them, but a few actually came up to him -  _ Why are you here? Can we have an autograph? Who are you here to pick up? _ \- all the standard questions, and the answers of which he was content to give, though they were a bit shocked when he told them he was here to pick someone up.

 

It didn’t take him long to spot Peter though, and accompanying him was who he guessed to be the rest of his decathlon team. He recognized Ned, he had never met him in person before but he had seen pictures of him before on Peter’s phone.

Peter needed attention and approval from adults, that much he could tell, and Venom liked him so he was content to give him that needed attention and approval.

 

“Peter!”, he called out, giving a small wave when Peter perked up, trying to find the source of his voice, and seemed to, once again, become all nerves when he saw him. Ned’s jaw dropped as well, and the rest of the decathlon team was stunned as well when Peter hurried over to him.

“Mr. Brock! What are you doing here?”, he lowered his voice, leaning a little closer. “Is this an Avengers thing?”

“Relax, relax, it’s not that. I’m just here to pick you up. Your aunt called me, she had to do an emergency shift cover.”

“Oh, that is so nice of you!”, at this point the rest of the team had come over as well, definitely curious.

“Peter, you know Eddie Brock? Mr. Brock it’s so nice to meet you!”, Ned seemed to be just as big of a fan as Peter was, practically vibrating in place as well and unable to pick his jaw up again.

“Nice to meet you too. Ned, right? Peter told me about you, we’re neighbors.”

“ _ Oh my god. _ ”, Ned was visibly starstruck that he knew his name, which was flattering all things considered.

A bit over a year ago he had been a complete mess, but now he was actually presentable and, apparently, had a small fanbase now that he was actually getting out reports again. Hell, he had even gotten an offer to restart the Brock Report. He was actually getting his life together, which was a miracle all things considered.

 

It was a few more minutes of fawning from the rest of the group before they had to leave as well.

“Here you go, your helmet. Wasn’t sure what size I should set the helmet size to, so it might need adjusting.”, he handed Peter the second helmet, helping him adjust the helmet size so that it fit him snugly but not too tightly. He had it in his lap right now, adjusting the size a little tighter when he heard a car horn go off behind him, causing him to jump off his motorcycle, nearly throwing the helmet at whoever had honked at them, Venom snarling inside his head from the pain the loud honked caused. “What the  _ f-- _ ”, he pressed his lips together to keep himself from swearing.  _ Nope, no swearing in front of the minors. _

“Hey, Penis Parker! Do you have to get rides from strangers now?”, Flash Thompson smirked from inside the sports car he sat in, not having recognized Eddie from behind.

“Do you  _ mind? _ ”, he glowered at the other kid, frowning and eyebrows furrowed in very obvious dismay, holding tightly onto the helmet he was still holding.

“Hey, Flash.”, Peter sighed softly, having also jumped at the sudden honk, evidently exasperated but not wanting to cause a scene.

“Who’s the guy? Another one of your  _ celebrity friends _ ?”, he was evidently trying to antagonize, and boy howdy if there was one other thing that Eddie hated next to corrupt business owners, it was bullies. He’s had his fair share of bullying when he was Peter’s age, so this hit a nerve.

 

**We should eat his head.**

 

_ V, no. _

 

**We know you think so as well.**

 

“Leave it, Flash--”

“I am. Eddie Brock, investigative journalist.”, he crossed his arms, jaw still tight and lips pressed together. “And Peter’s neighbor.”

“ _ Pfft _ , no way.”, he seemed a little nervous at how annoyed Eddie was, trying to pretend he didn’t recognize him when he ever so clearly did.

“I suggest you move along, you’re blocking the exit, and we’re leaving.”, he handed the helmet to Peter, making a motion for Flash to move his car. It only needed a little pressure from a single rev of the engine for him to skedaddle and Eddie sighed. “You know, you don’t have to let him walk all over you.”, he looked over to Peter still holding the helmet, seemingly a little in awe.

“It’s really not that bad. Well, it can be a bit annoying, but I can handle it!”

“It shouldn’t be happening in the first place.”, he sighed again, shaking his head. “Well, if you need to talk, you know where to find us.”, he put on his helmet, putting back the side kick and getting on the motorcycle, waiting for Peter to get on as well. “Hold on, this thing can go pretty fast.”

 

Peter evidently liked the motorcycle, audibly whooping through the noise of the wind as they drove through the New York streets and to their apartment complex, waving to Peter as he went upstairs ahead of him as he parked his motorcycle, then following after and going into his own apartment, sighing softly as he put his key on his kitchen counter and collapsing onto his couch, reaching out for his phone and the indian take-away pamphlet.

 

**Are we still ordering spicy curry?**

 

“Absolutely we are, love.”

 

**Damn it.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not posting yesterday, i was really busy and couldn't finish this chapter in time!!


	18. Warm Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie likes to keep his hands busy.

Eddie Brock had his quirks, all of which culminated into him standing out like a sore thumb in most social situations.

He liked to jiggle his legs in invisible patterns, rapped his fingers against the desk, or tapped them against his thumb back and forth, wore earplugs whenever it is that he remembered to do so, bounced in place when he got restless, and by god you could not get him to hold eye contact if his life depended on it (though he found a work-around for that issue, just stare at people’s nose).

So, he often stood out if he didn’t keep his hands busy, kept himself occupied with something to put his mind on.

 

He was at the train station to get back to their apartment after having met a source for his next story outside of town - it had been a fishy situation, but he had Venom with him, so they were fine.

He sighed, looking at the big clock next to the screen showing the train times - they had another hour before their train was going to leave, and Eddie could not stand the thought of just sitting in the train for an extra hour.

He was looking around, trying to find something to occupy himself with, lighting up when he spotted a piano for public use.

 

**You play the piano?**

 

“M-hm. Keeps my hands busy, haven’t played it in a long time though. Let’s hope muscle memory comes through on this one.”, he replied, going over and sitting down on the stool in front of the piano, hesitating for a moment before beginning to play a simple tune. It wasn’t anything complicated, it was mostly muscle-memory at this point, but it kept him busy. There were a few wrong keys here and there, after all he hadn’t played in a long time, but it worked.

 

It killed the time too, and soon enough they were back in their apartment, and he relaxed into his bed with his laptop, working on writing up his article. Work kept him busy as well, gave him something to focus on. It made the hours just fly by, only stopping when he felt Venom nudge his shoulder, looking over to see a warm plate of tater tots sitting next to him.   
“Aw, thanks, love.”, he smiled, pressing a kiss to Venom’s cheek before popping a tater tot into his mouth.

 

He sighed when he felt the floor vibrate, hands moving over his ears to try and block out the noise. They were repaving the road outside, and the noise was so great that it was rattling the windows, and it sounded like his radiator was about to spring off the wall. The noise wasn’t so fun for his symbiote friend either, he could feel it coiling up somewhere in his abdominal cavity, trying to get away from the sound.

Thankfully, the cacophony outside didn’t last long, and he could finally go back to work, opening the windows at one point to let in some fresh air since he actually remembered to do that for once.

 

He would have continued working like this if there hadn’t been a knock on his door, which made him tense. He hadn’t expected anyone over, and he was worried these were more lackeys that wanted to kidnap him for his symbiote.

 

**They won’t.**

 

“I know, V…”, he mumbled, putting his laptop aside as he got up, cautiously approaching the door. He took a deep breath before opening the door, prepared to be met with the muzzle of a gun, but blinked when he was faced with a woman. A woman he knows very well.

 

“.... Hi, mom.”

“Eddie Brock, I  _ cannot _ believe that you didn’t tell me that you moved back into New York. I had to hear the news from your  _ ex-fiance _ of all people!”, Eddie cringed as his mother barged into the flat, cheeks flushed in embarrassment at the mess in his apartment, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Well, I was swamped with work, I didn’t really have any time to tell you-”

“You could have sent a text at the very least. Have you been solely feeding off of tater tots again? I can tell you gained weight.”, she turned back to face Eddie, arms crossed as she looked her son. “Come here, you.”, she uncrossed her arms, pulling Eddie into a hug - one he gladly returned. “You had me worried you know, with the whole Life Foundation thing.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”, he sighed softly, relaxing into the hug. He had talked to his parents less often than he’d have liked, but with everything going on he couldn’t. Not with him having had to adjust having an alien parasite in his body.

 

**Not a parasite. Apologize!**

 

“‘M sorry.”, he mumbled into the hug, the apology directed towards Venom, though he could at least hide his talking to Venom like this.

“Oh, don’t be, Eddie. How have you been? You feel like you’re having a fever, when did you last have yourself checked out by a doctor?”, of course his mother fussed, she always had when she suspected he might be ill.

“It’s nothing to worry about, really. All things considered, I’ve been doing well… I got an offer to pick up the Brock Report again.”, he was trying to pull attention away from him running hot - away from Venom. He didn’t need to give his mother of all people a heart attack with his symbiote.

“Ah, you never did pass up the opportunity to do good.”, she gave Eddie’s cheek a few soft pats, causing Eddie to wrinkle his nose slightly. Damn it, he was almost 40, and yet he felt like a young child anytime he talked to his mother.

“Yeah, I guess not… But, uh, how did you find me?”

“That you even have to ask, I am your  _ mother _ , Eddie. I always find you sooner or later. Now, let’s see whether you actually listened to me when I said you should eat healthily.”, and with that she walked into Eddie’s kitchen, and Eddie was powerless to stop her because he knew that if he tried to stop her, she would know full well he hadn’t listened to her.

 

Eddie just gave a defeated sigh, guiltily standing off to the side as his mother opened the cabinets, immediately finding his stash of chocolates that he kept for Venom. “Eddie, what in the world would you need so much chocolate for?”

“Uh… It’s.. for a friend.”

“I can’t help but question your choice in friends if they have you stash an ungodly amount of chocolate in your home for them.”, Eddie didn’t really give a reply to that, just awkwardly staring off into space, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, keeping his hands busy with the slick goop that was Venom that congealed against his hands. At least Venom knew how to keep him from losing his mind to fidgeting.

 

**She’s too nosy.**

_ She’s my mother, V. Mothers are just like that. _

**We don’t like it. You don’t like it either.**

_ I know. _

**We can stop her.**

_ Don’t even think about it. _

 

“Eddie? Eddie, are you listening to me?”, his mother’s voice snapped him back to reality, flinching when he realized he had been so absorbed with his internal conversation with his symbiote that he had completely tuned out the world around him.

“Oh-- I uh.. Sorry, I zoned out.”

“I can tell. Are you sure you’re feeling well?”

“Yeah, we- I’m fine, it’s nothing--”, he was cut off when the noise from the workers outside started up again, but with the open windows the noise had so much more power to it. So, when the windows began to rattle again, and the radiator began shaking, he clutched his head, hissing as his knees gave out, black veins fading onto his skin as Venom screeched in his head from the pain.

Of course his mother immediately reacted, guiding him over to the couch before closing the windows, not yet having noticed the black veins. Eddie stayed curled up there until the noise finally went away, though Eddie was still out of it.

“Eddie, come on, look at me.”, she gripped his shoulders, trying to get Eddie’s attention, though without any success. Eddie was well, and truly, in a sensory overload.

 

_ Too loud, too much, cotton too rough against his skin and any little noise overwhelming, unwanted hands clutching his shoulders- _

“ _ Venom, make it stop! _ ”, he clutched his head harder with fingers tangled in his hair, barely aware of his mother gasping in shock as the black matter of his symbiote congealed out of his skin and around his body.

 

**Of course.**

 

Everything that had just overwhelmed him dulled, finally able to catch his breath as Venom enveloped him, made him feel safe, protected, unfazed by the world around him. However, as his senses returned to him as Venom, he realized that he may have just given his mother a heart attack.

In fact, she was standing several feet away now, hands clutching onto the counter of his small kitchen, staring at them wide-eyed.

“What the hell are you, and what have you done to my son?!”, she demanded, fear on her face but rage in her voice - a combination the symbiote found quite peculiar.

 

**We are the ‘friend’ Eddie mentioned.**

 

Venom grinned, getting up to their full height, purposely being unnecessarily threatening. He had rifled through Eddie’s memories before - he’s always had a difficult relationship with his mother. He loved her, she was his  _ mother _ for crying out loud, but damn it they’ve had their good share of fights as Eddie grew up. Her not understanding his mental issues, her not understanding his choice of partners, his want to become a journalist in such a risky field. And damn it, she could be  _ very _ controlling, which made Eddie paranoid.

To the symbiote, those memories translated to her hurting Eddie, and he had a firm belief of biting off the head of  _ anyone _ that hurt Eddie.

 

_ V, no, get back in, we are  _ **_not_ ** _ eating my mother! _

**But she hurt you.**

_ New rule; No eating my family members. _

**Hmpf.**

 

Venom reluctantly got back into Eddie, who stumbled back, arms out in front of him, panicked in trying to calm his mother down. “I am  _ so sorry _ , you weren’t supposed to see that--”

“What  _ was that _ , Eddie?”

“... Venom. It’s uh.. A bit of a long story.”

“I believe I have time to listen to that long story, considering you nearly gave me a heart attack with that little stunt.”

“Right…”

 

And so, Eddie ended up telling the entire story from start to finish. Nobody knew the full story outside of Venom and himself - hell, even Anne and Dan didn’t know everything. It felt freeing to tell someone, even if that someone was his mother - who didn’t always understand the things he got himself into.

 

She sighed softly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I need some time to digest all this.”

“Understandable. Just… don’t tell anyone, please?”

“As if anyone would believe me if I told them.”, she gave Eddie a pat on the shoulder, a smile on her face that was still yet laced with concern. “Don’t get yourself in trouble, alright?”

“Can’t promise anything. Trouble comes with the job.”

And when his mother finally left, he slumped back on his chair, nearly tipping it over in the process.

“You weren’t really going to bite her head off, were you?”

 

**She hurt you, of course we would have.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF OK SO  
> I know i haven't uploaded in a while  
> But ya boi got swamped with school work, and also I'm running a touch dry on drabble material (AKA holler drabble ideas for me to write ;0)


	19. Saltshakers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Venom go gift-shopping for Anne's and Dan's wedding

As the symbiote soon realized, making their own meals made Eddie happy. So did cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, doing all those little things he always put off doing. He could never figure out how to fix the biochemistry that caused it, but he knew he could nudge Eddie to do them, if he was in the right mood.

Doing these things he could normally never get himself to do caused a rush of endorphins that Venom loved to soak in. However, his favourite one had to be cooking.

The symbiote had taken to watching cooking videos, excitedly pointing at them whenever it managed to get Eddie’s attention, and occasionally he could get Eddie to actually cook the meals it saw.

 

Eddie hummed softly as he cracked an egg against the counter, dropping the egg over the onions, ham, bell peppers, and rice in the pan he was using to cook.

“You’re being clingy.”, he said as Venom shifted against the crook of his neck, giggling when the symbiote’s tongue flicked against the ticklish skin there. “Easy, it’s not a bad thing. Just an observation.”, he pressed a kiss to the symbiote’s head tucked against his neck, smiling as it purred.

 

It was when he was eating his meal he got the call - he was talking more regularly with Anne and Dan these days, and he actually felt like he actually had his life together most days.

“Hey, Anne.”, he greeted, quietly chewing along as she spoke. “What? Shit, really? Congratulations, you two.”, he put his fork down, ignoring Venom’s huff. “Wh- Really? Fuck, I don’t know what to say, I’m really happy for you two. ...Are you kidding, of course I will. … Uh-huh. … Yeah, getting you a wedding gift is going to be a challenge and a half.”

 

**Wedding gift?**

 

“Yeah, that was Venom. No, we weren’t biting someone’s head off. Yes, I can cook. … Yeah, yeah, real funny, Dan.”, he shook his head bemused. “I’ll talk to you later, bye. Yeah, bye.”, he hung up, pausing for a few seconds before exhaling deeply.

 

**What’s a wedding? And what’s a wedding gift?**

 

“It’s uh… A wedding is a thing that people do when they do a marriage. Basically a fancy party.”

 

**What’s marriage?**

 

“A bond that people make when they want to spend the rest of their lives together. It also gives them tax benefits. Anne and I were going to get married, but… Well, you know what happened.”, Eddie said as Venom visibly rippled, eyes narrowing in thought.

 

**Are we married?**

 

That had Eddie almost choking on his own spit, coughing as Venom immediately absorbed back into him to help him out on not choking.

“I uh… I mean, I don’t think I can get a marriage license saying I’m married to a goop alien living in my brain.”

 

**Not just the brain, Eddie.**

 

“I know, V. I mean, we  _ could _ have a private wedding, but y’know. We can do that  _ after _ Anne and Dan get hitched.”, he made a vague gesture before stuffing another forkful of food into his mouth.

 

And that’s how Eddie found himself in the old antique shop down the road, carousing for something to get for Anne’s and Dan’s wedding. There was no one else in the shop save for the teenager at the register who looked like he was about to fall over asleep. “Do you think they’d like this?”, he picked up a fancy-looking vase, inspecting the golden floral pattern along the rim.

 

**Boring.**

 

“... Yeah, that’s fair.”, he set the vase back, continuing his trek through the antique shop. He honestly nearly missed them, he only happened to be glancing in their direction when he noticed them. Salt shakers in the shape of the eiffel tower. He blinked a few times before going to look at them properly, picking them up and looking at them.

 

**Salt shakers, Eddie?**

 

“Well, Anne said she’s always wanted a honeymoon in Paris. It’ll be something of an inside joke, I hope.”, he knew that this was the best he could get at this store for their wedding, carrying them with him as he did one last round around the store for anything else that caught their eyes. Alas, there was nothing else, and they went on to buy a small box and packaging for their little gift.

 

It was another few months before the actual wedding, and Eddie actually remembered to go looking for a suit, and with Venom’s help even that was a quick thing done. Really, it was just him holding different parts of a tux against his body, let Venom get a feel, and he then gave his opinion on whether or not it fit.

The symbiote still insisted on being the tie of the tux though.

 

And so, the wedding came. He really had no idea why it was  _ him _ being the best man at the wedding - he was even asked to give his own two cents during the wedding in the church.

It was beautiful, honestly. He had attended weddings before of family members, but he had never really been close to them. It was a whole different story with Anne and Dan though.

 

**You’re going to cry.**

_ Shh. _

**You’re tearing up.**

_ Shh! _

 

The symbiote was right though, he was absolutely tearing up, just barely so holding it in as Anne and Dan kissed, a wide smile on his face. They were happy together, and they deserved each other.

He barely managed to contain himself when it came to he congratulations, giving both of them a big hug.

 

When it came to finally giving them the wedding gifts, he was hoping the inside joke wasn’t lost on either of them as he approached them, the small box in hand.

“Hey, Anne.”

“Hey, Eddie! I see you managed to find something.”, Anne eyed the box, knowing full well that the small gifts often were either horrifying or absolutely hilarious.

“Yeah, it took some looking around, but I found something. Remember how you said you wanted a honeymoon in Paris? Well…”, he handed over the box, Dan opening it and both peering inside. As soon as Anne saw the salt shakers she burst out in laughter, shaking her head.

“Oh, Eddie, that’s great. Thank you,  _ both _ of you. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your tie eating bits of sweets.”, she gave the tie-shaped symbiote a little poke, to which it replied by shifting against Eddie’s blouse.

“It insisted on it.”, he gave a small shrug, ignoring the symbiote’s question in his head about when there will be cake.

“As long as you don’t give my great-aunt a heart attack.”, Dan said with a chuckle, inspecting one of the salt shakers.

“I can try, but I can’t promise anything.”

“We’ll hold you to that.”, Anne said, patting Eddie’s shoulder, turning to talk with another relative that had popped up behind Eddie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF it took me way too long to finish this. Ya boi's hella swamped with school work rn.


End file.
